


SPECTRE: the world splits

by ura_nium, z8tto (ura_nium)



Series: Spectre. [1]
Category: ATEEZ (Band)
Genre: Action, Adventure, Alternate Universe - Demon Hunters, Alternate Universe - Modern with Magic, Blood and Injury, Blood and Violence, Dubious Ethics, Eventual Romance, Eventual..... Sexual content?, Everyone loves everyone in the most platonic way and hips do not lie, F/F, Implied/Referenced Character Death, M/M, Mind Manipulation, Multi, Stalking, Swearing, THE BAD WORDS HAVE FINALLY ARRIVED, Threats of Violence, there are no main characters
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-15
Updated: 2021-02-17
Packaged: 2021-03-11 03:35:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 31,482
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28088607
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ura_nium/pseuds/ura_nium, https://archiveofourown.org/users/ura_nium/pseuds/z8tto
Summary: Yeosang doesn't like parties. He doesn't know why he agreed to this.ㅡㅡㅡATEEZ + heavily mutated Shadowhunter lore = this fic
Relationships: ATEEZ Ensemble & ATEEZ Ensemble, Choi San & Choi Jongho & Kim Hongjoong, Choi San & Choi Jongho & Kim Hongjoong & Jeong Yunho & Song Mingi, Choi San/Jung Wooyoung/Kang Yeosang, Kang Yeosang & Park Seonghwa, Kang Yeosang & Park Seonghwa & Jung Wooyoung, OT8 - Relationship, Other Relationship Tags to Be Added
Series: Spectre. [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2057772
Comments: 37
Kudos: 31
Collections: When this universe sucks... go make a few of your own.





	1. Every Breath You Take

**Author's Note:**

> **Some guiding information:**  
>  \- You don't need to've watched Shadowhunters to understand this, imo. If you're just here for the fic, basically, most of ATEEZ are demon-hunters, and they get their powers from drawing symbols on themselves with a wand-like object called the stele. Happy reading!
> 
> \- This fic is set in modern day Seoul!/S.Korea. The Shadowhunter population is much, much larger than in the canon series in this particular universe. Reasons in endnotes**.
> 
> \- terms:  
> normie = mundane = regular humans
> 
> \- for the clarity's sake, I'm listing the dispositions and (working) roles of the characters here _as they change with each chapter_ :
> 
> PARK Seonghwa - Nephilim, Shadowhunter, member of the Clave, junior member of the Council
> 
> KIM Hongjoong - Nephilim, Keyboardist, Vocals, Songwriter, Producer
> 
> JEONG Yunho - Human, Vocals, Drummer/Percussionist
> 
> KANG Yeosang - Nephilim, Shadowhunter, member of the Clave
> 
> CHOI San - Nephilim, Lead Guitarist, Vocals
> 
> SONG Mingi - Human, Bassist, Songwriter, Producer
> 
> JUNG Wooyoung - Warlock, member of the Clave, Apprentice to Head Warlock of Seoul
> 
> CHOI Jongho - Nephilim, Lead vocalist, Rhythm Guitarist, Drummer/Percussionist

Yeosang doesn't like parties. He doesn't know why he agreed to this.

He tightens his hand instinctively around Wooyoung's, letting him tug him towards an impenetrable knot of humans. By some miracle, a gap opened up; that would never happen for him, but for Wooyoung it's a different thing. It isn't even a spell or some kind of hex — it is just a phenomenon specific to one Jung Wooyoung. 

They find themselves in the middle of the dancing ruckus; they are close enough to the stage now that he can see the speakers vibrating with beats. His best friend glances back at him, his eyes glittering with glee. Despite his discomfort, he grins, rolling his eyes. Alright. Maybe parties aren't that bad. At least when his friends are around. 

The beats are a little too loud, but he can't deny that it has a good groove to it. Yeosang goes along, bouncing on the balls of his feet a little. Wooyoung is already lost to the music, shouting the lyrics at the top of his lungs as he moves.

He feels someone staring at him. Yeosang's eyes flit to the side and he sees a familiar figure, slender and tall, leaning out from the second level, watching them with a smile on his face. He scowls at Seonghwa, waving for him to come down. To an onlooker it would look like _join me_ but Yeosang means for it to be more like a _save me_. 

The older boy turns his head and feigns ignorance, his eyes looking to the stage where the band was playing. Fine. If that's how he wants things to be.

Wooyoung is really going at it now, and there's a dude dancing up against him. The young warlock doesn't seem to mind, but even in the low lights of the club without his night vision rune, he can see that the guy was wearing what has to be the ugliest orange and green button-up in the universe, with the buttons undone to the middle of his chest, paired with a pair of light-washed jeans. Gross.

That's it.

He dances, stronger this time, his shoulders moving in time with the music and his strides confident. He doesn't want to dance, that doesn't mean he can't. For a moment, he lets his body move however it wants, but once he's close enough, his elbows jab out with the beat. The normie moves to avoid his rhythmic movements, narrowly avoiding being stomped on as his feet step firmly into the space between him and Wooyoung. Wooyoung is watching him, laughter in his glitter-lined eyes and on his painted, lavender lips. His hair flashes a deep shade of lilac, shining like a beacon as he dances to the beat.

Purple is not everyone's colour, but if it has to belong to someone, it'd belong to Wooyoung.

They get close enough, and the orange-and-green guy finally backs off. Yeosang flashes him a sharp-toothed grin as he continues to cut a wide berth around his best friend, spinning fluidly but aggressively. He can feel some of the other clubbers watching with interest, and he is not ashamed to admit he feeds off the energy a little. Yeosang continues, transitioning into more stylistic moves he'd seen a street dancer do while on one of their patrols. There a few cheers as he ends off in a flourish, and then goes back to dancing with Wooyoung. They keep at it until the song ends, at which his friend nudges him playfully in the ribs, laughing and panting as the music winds down.

"Show-off." Yeosang shrugs, but doesn't stop the grin from spreading across his lips as he bumped his shoulder into Wooyoung. The latter links his sweat-slick arm with his, still chuckling. They watch as the redhead on the keys shouts over the crowd, into his mic. 

"Alright, this is our last number before we hand things back to the DJ. This one's an old favourite of ours, thanks for having us!"

The drummer taps his sticks to the count of four and the song takes off with the lilting echoes of the synth. They are barely five seconds in when Yeosang finds his euphoria ebbing, giving way to a unnatural chill that runs across his shoulders.

There's something wrong with this song. Something... strange. 

His legs seem to lock into place, and his dancing slows to a stop. The rhythm guitarist, a wiry handsome youngster with his light-coloured hair slicked back with sweat and gel, starts singing into the mic. His voice, which has been nothing but pleasant tonight, has taken on a strange grating quality. It makes Yeosang's skin crawl. It isn't a nice feeling.

Wooyoung is slowing down, but he doesn't seem affected by the uneasy quality of the music. If anything, he seems entranced by the music, swaying gently as his eyes cloud over. A beat later, the lead guitarist joins, his harmony, or rather, the lack thereof, cutting into the song like a serrated knife against a metal grate. 

"Wooyoung?" 

It's not just him, Yeosang realises as he glances around. He has to surpress a shiver as he takes in the strange scene slowly unfolding before him — everyone, and by this he means literally everyone, has stopped dancing. But from the way the blue-haired drummer is having at the drums, the song is still keeping with an upbeat, almost forcefully dance-driven tempo. It's certainly not something that someone would stop and sway too, even if it didn't sound great. 

The singing starts to fade, transitioning into a keyboard and guitar solo. The bassist, a tall guy whose eyes are hidden behind his brown fringe doesn't seem bothered by the change in mood. He is focused on playing his bass guitar, picking at the strings meticulously, not missing a single beat. 

A hand touches him on his arm, and he almost jumps a foot into the air. 

"Hyung. Something weird is—" Seonghwa nods, eyeing Red on the keyboard. The keyboardist has now taken over the vocals as well, playing while he hums a strange lilting tune, while the drummer crashes out as the tempo slows. Blondie is setting his electric guitar down, rolling his shoulders, while the lead guitarist seems to be warming up as well. The young man is twirling something shiny in his left hand — when he catches it, Yeosang is shocked to see that it's a sai, a weapon he's only seen during weapons class back at KOI. Even those his teacher shows them are rusty and medieval-looking -- he's never seen one so shiny and polished before. As if... as if it is regularly used.

"What's going on, hyung?" he asks softly, feeling entirely bewildered. In all honesty, Seonghwa looks as lost as he is, but he hides it under a well-crafted mask of detached indifference. It's one of those things he's picked up from his older brother; people often try to get a rise out of you when you're the sons of the Head of the Institute, just to make you step out of line. It is useful to have a tight reign over your emotions. 

Blondie is fiddling with his guitar case, and from seemingly nowhere, he pulls out a thin, long sword. He waves it at the keyboardist with a cheeky grin; the latter doesn't waver in his humming, but he rolls his eyes and gives the boy an almost imperceptible, disapproving shake of his head. Blue the drummer covers his mouth in silent laughter and Sai the guitarist grins, a startlingly cheeky thing that doesn't quite suit his otherwise sullen demeanour. The bassist shrugs half-heartedly when the guitarist looks over for his support. Blondie pouts dramatically, tossing the katana down and reaches instead for his boot and pulls out a short knife, not unlike the ones Seonghwa sometimes uses on ceremonial hunts. 

Before he can blink, both Sai and Blondie leap down into the middle of the dance floor, moving too fast and landing too softly for humans. Yeosang bites back a yelp of surprise.

Demons? But no, demons don't need weapons...

The two young men do not waste anytime. They start with a knot of people in a trance further to the front, talking to them. Seonghwa glances back to Wooyoung, who's still locked in a daze, staring at the band on stage, swaying like a branch in the wind.

"Wooyoung. Wooyoung, snap out of it."

The boy doesn't respond, eyes staring vacantly at the band, a beatific smile on his blank face. Yeosang is already sliding out his stele from within his sleeve, while keeping a tight hold around Wooyoung's wrist, and tracing out his hearing rune. Immediately, the field of sound ramps up by eight notches, but he zeros in on the boy with the sais. 

_**Status?**_ is the only thing Sai says curtly into the ear of a pale, dark haired girl dressed in ripped shorts and a tank top. 

_Human._

_**Understood. Go home now. You will not remember any of this.** _

Without another word, the girl turns on her heel and leaves. Sai turns to another person, this time a short, stocky man whose skin looks blue under dance lights.

_**Status?** _

_Vampire._

_**Understood. Leave, you will not remember any of this**_. the man disappears with a flicker of a shadow. 

A chill runs down Yeosang's spine.

 _Vampire. They know about them. They know about Otherworlders*. They're from our world. But what are they?_

He hones in on Blondie just in time to watch a light-skinned girl in red lipstick and a sultry dress to declare her demon status. There's a glint of something akin to glee in the young man's eyes as he drives his dagger through her, without warning. She gives a wailing screech and evaporates into black wisps. Yeosang knows what demons look like when you get them, but it doesn't mean he is won't flinch in shock. 

_Who are they?_

His rune is wearing off, and with it goes the selective hearing. Red on the keyboard is still singing, the music running like an undercurrent to the members on the dance floor, working their way through the crowd. Blue and Bass have joined them as well, talking to the crowd. The humans and Otherworlders, they seem to just send away, but the demons they usher towards Sai and Blondie.

"Hyung, what should we do?" Seonghwa meets his gaze, then looking at Wooyoung.

"I don't think we're supposed to be unaffected by whatever they've done to everyone here. Let's go. Before they find us." 

"But I just heard them asking—" 

"Whoa, nephilim. Y'all are nephilim, right?" the voice makes them both turn. The blonde boy is standing right next to them, a bright grin on his face. It looks seriously dissonant, especially in the crowd of immobilised zombie people. 

"We..."

His hyung puts a hand on his arm to stop him from continuing his sentence. 

"What are you doing to these people?" 

The boy's eyes widen by a fraction.

"The people? Nothing. Have you been listening to what we've been asking them?"

When neither of them answered, he continued, waving his hand casually at the crowd, "we're merely exterminating. We don't touch the humans and otherworlders, we only get rid of the demons." 

There's a billion questions bubbling beneath his chest, but his tongue can't seem to form the words. The blonde boy glances around, then checks something strapped to his wrist, a watch. 

"Anyway, we're almost done for tonight. There are not many demons left."

Seonghwa lifts a brow, glancing about at the slowly thinning, "How'd you know that?" 

The same, gleeful light that Yeosang noticed from before returns into Blondie's eyes, like he knows something they don't. 

"We just know."

His eyes drift to Wooyoung, and his face changes a little. It softens, almost.

"Ah, this is why you've stayed around, I'm guessing. We don't usually get nephilim at these things, and those that do usually leave once they find out we're just a bunch of rogues that enjoy killing demons." 

Seonghwa's eyes are narrowed, "you've met other hunters, I mean, nephilim before? Were they from KOI?" 

"Dunno. Usually not. But I can't remember." says Blondie, shrugging, "Sorry we're keeping your friend under. Status?" 

It's like the young man had sent a jolt of electricity through Wooyoung, because the boy jumps, and beams at San, "I'm a Warlock!" 

"Understood. Leave now. Remember none of this." 

"Okay," Wooyoung says as he tugs his hand out of Yeosang's fingers, still grinning almost mechanically, "You're really cute." 

The warlock snaps his fingers and disappears in a puff of smoke. Yeosang feels his ears burn at Wooyoung's outright declaration, but Seonghwa is still looking over Blondie who is chuckling, his eyes taking in his figure. 

"Sorry, that happens sometimes." 

It takes a beat for Yeosang to register what he says, "What, the flirting?" 

Blondie's eyes lock with his, and he realises that the boy is actually wearing amber-coloured contacts. It makes his gaze look particularly piercing. He glances away quickly to their surroundings. Most of the people on the dance floor and in the drinking booths are gone now, apart from a small knot of strangers that have been gathered in the middle, as if waiting for someone to do something to them. The young man with the sais and the other members are on the second floor of the club now, and they can hear them clearing out anybody who's not a demon, and the dying shrieks of those that are. 

"I have a question," he hears Seonghwa ask, "What do you get, out of this?" 

"Us? What we get... What _do_ we get?" the young man seems to think for a while, glancing at his band member who's still on the stage, whose singing is holding everyone else in a trance. His expression is strange, a cross between bright and determined but also... sorrowful?

He seems to shake the expression off, returning to his cheery smile, "We get to play music, get our name out there, and most importantly, we get paid." 

He presses his forefingers together, as if he's rubbing two coins, and shows it to Yeosang. The gesture is familiar, but Yeosang can't quite place it. 

"So people pay you to drive away their customers?" Seonghwa doesn't look convinced. 

"Nah, they pay us to cleanse the place. We've been doing this for while, as small-time exterminators, but recently...There's been a high amount of demon traffic in this area of town recently, even the humans are starting to notice." Blondie wiggles his eyebrows at them, "KOI has detecting instruments, right? You should know."

"Yes." "No." Seonghwa and Yeosang answer at the same time. He looks at his older brother, as Blondie walks away, trying not to appear too shocked. 

"We know? Since when?" 

"Leader Yoon picked up an increase in demon sightings and energy signatures along this whole street. It was a council meeting, so you weren't there. So when Wooyoung started trying to get you to go to this rave with him..." 

"You tagged along. Right." it makes sense. These parties were more of a Wooyoung and his other friends' thing — Seonghwa is usually too busy with work to go to ragers like this, and Yeosang only went if Wooyoung was there. 

"Alright, all you idiots! Status?" he hears the guy shout at the group of people on the dance floor

"Demon!" come a chorus of voices. If he focuses, even without his Sight Rune, Yeosang can see a leathery tail sprouting out under the miniskirt of one of the girls, a set of stubby brown horns on another young man with hair the colour of cement, and another man whose legs are too hairy to be human -- he's wearing a pair or cowboy boots, probably so they can't see his cloven hooves. There's about the twenty of them, and the versatility and variation in their disguises sends a chill down Yeosang's spine — even with almost three years of field experience, he doubts he'd be able to pick them out in a crowd. How did so many slip under KOI's nose? 

"This is an infestation," he murmurs to his older brother, who nods in agreement, "why weren't any units mobilised?" 

"Father has needed them on other things... We haven't been watching the wards in some areas as much." 

"More like not at all." snarks Yeosang. Seonghwa clicks his tongue at his adopted brother's gripe, but he doesn't disagree. Watching Blondie happily stab his way through the demons makes his fingers twitch towards his empty holster. He is now wishing he brought his own weapons along to this stupid rave that Wooyoung has abandoned them at. 

"We should go." 

Yeosang's surprise must show, because Seonghwa sighs, "Like I said, we've been dealing with... Some things. I don't want us to get in trouble with the Clave unecessarily." 

He snorts, "Right. More like _you_ don't want to get in trouble with the Clave, right, Leader Park?" 

Seonghwa doesn't laugh like he thought he would. After a beat, Yeosang sighs, relenting.

"Fine. The next time we invite you out, drinks are still on you." his brother pats his back gratefully as they get ready to leave. A thought occurs to Yeosang as Seonghwa goes to the counter to pay ( _"How are you going to pay for it if the bartender was a demon? I just saw him evaporate, like, five minutes ago." "I'll manage."_ ) and he hurries over to where Blondie is picking up something from the floor. Probably something someone, or some demon, dropped. The young man doesn't notice him standing there, so he shifts awkwardly, face feeling strangely warm. 

"What's your name?" 

Blondie straightens up, "Me? I'm San. Choi San. Here..." 

He digs around his pocket and pulls out a card. The dissonance of the image, a rock band of demon hunters handing out business cards, makes him chuckle a little. 

"What? Why're you laughing? Is there something weird on the card?" 

"No, no..." the embossed letters shine a strange pink in lights of the club. 

"G... L... B?"

"That's our band name. See, Good Lil Boy." the guitarist pronounces the English words with a near-perfect American accent. 

"Right. Because..." 

"Well, there's another meaning to it, if you look at the consonants in Korean..."

"Kang Yeosang." he looks over his shoulder to see Seonghwa nodding his head towards the door, "Time to go." 

"Yeosang, Kang Yeosang. That's your name?" Choi San asks curiously.

"Yes. And that's my hyung, Seonghwa."

"Ah. Which year are you born in?" 

"1999." the way San's eyes lights up makes him want to smile even wider. This person is easy to talk to. 

"We're the same age, then? Same-aged friends." 

Yeosang blinks. Once. "I guess." 

"Nice. Well, don't worry about your warlock friend! He'll be back to normal in the morning, and the truth-telling will wear off. If he usually isn't like that, he'd go back to normal." 

So that's what it was. This means the Wooyoung they got on a regular basis is pretty close to his real self. 

"Goodbye, Choi San-sshi." he says as he turns to leave. 

"Just San will do." 

He's sure he imagines the cheeky little wink that the boy gives him, because it happens at the last split-second, but that doesn't stop his sensitive ears. At least Seonghwa has the tact to not comment on it. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> * **Otherworlders** : an alternative, more socially acceptable name for Downworlders, as the Americans often call them. In Korea, it is become quite derogatory to refer to them like that, in the wake of the Second Eastern Uprising. It is actually entirely outlawed in some places, such as New Zealand, China, Singapore, Japan, Nepal to refer to non-angelic paranormal beings as Downworlders. It can be considered hate speech and is punishable by regional Clavic laws. South Korea does not have such a law, but it has become a cultural norm to refer to paranormal beings by their specific denomination or Otherworlders, and Shadowhunters as simply Nephilim or Hunters. 
> 
> **larger population of nephilim + **Hybrids** : in this verse, the Nephilim and Humans, as well as _Warlocks, Seelies, Demons, Angels_ are all able to procreate. this means we can have Shadowhunters that are half-warlock half-nephilim, half-nephilim half-seelie, etc. I have a very strong reason for writing it as such, if you wish to discuss this with me further, find me @crayteez on the blue bird app (twitter).


	2. Way Back Home

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Some guiding information:**  
>  \- for the clarity's sake, I'm listing the dispositions and (working) roles of the characters here as they change with each chapter:
> 
> PARK Seonghwa - Nephilim, Shadowhunter, member of the Clave, junior member of the Council
> 
> KIM Hongjoong - Nephilim, Keyboardist, Vocals, Songwriter, Producer, older foster brother to the CHOIs
> 
> JEONG Yunho - Human, Vocals, Drummer/Percussionist
> 
> KANG Yeosang - Nephilim, Shadowhunter, member of the Clave
> 
> CHOI San - Nephilim, Lead Guitarist, Vocals, Younger foster brother of Hongjoong and older brother of Jongho
> 
> SONG Mingi - Human, Bassist, Songwriter, Producer
> 
> JUNG Wooyoung - Warlock, member of the Clave, Apprentice to Head Warlock of Seoul
> 
> CHOI Jongho - Nephilim, Lead vocalist, Rhythm Guitarist, Drummer/Percussionist, Younger foster brother of Hongjoong and younger brother of San

"So... what's his name?"

San looks up from where he's fiddling with his guitar on the coffee table to see Hongjoong standing at the door of the bedroom, pushing his spectacles on. 

"Oh, you're up. Did Jongho wake you with his singing?" the younger boy has a habit of singing ballads in the shower, and it's not like they have a volume button for him. A muting rune may work, but if they're honest, everyone in the house enjoys Jongho's singing. San just hopes that their neighbours don't mind the nightly concerts.

"No, just woke up suddenly and felt like I needed some water." 

"I'll get it for you. Come sit." San stands and pats the space on the sofa. His older brother shuffles over and flops down onto it with a sigh, looking about the empty apartment with weary eyes. San and Jongho had won the right to shower first and second in the car, so Yunho had gone on a grocery run after supper. Mingi is still at the nearby convenience store with their shared laptop, using the wifi to load a movie while he tests out a new device he'd been tinkering with; Hongjoong had been out cold since they packed up and left the gig at the club. 

San watches him from the corner of his eye as he fills up a glass of water in the kitchenette in their small rented apartment. Demon-nights, especially large, organised ones like last night always took a lot out of Hongjoong. The song never works with just San or Jongho sustaining the melodies at the end, so they usually depend on their hyung to maintain the song while they clear out the room as fast as possible. But this also means that the bigger the crowd, the longer the song has to be played, and San supposes that will take a lot out of anyone, even someone who likes music and performing as much as Hongjoong.

"You haven't answered my question. Who was that little pink-haired nephilim you spent the better part of 20 minutes talking to?" 

"Little? Hyung, I'm pretty sure he's taller than you." San rubs his nose a little self-consciously, sitting crosslegged on the floor as his older brother sips his water, eyeing him over the rim of the glass.

"Who are they?" 

"No one. They were just a bunch of folks out on a Friday night for a party."

"Choi San."

"Kim Hongjoong... hyung," San parrots, tagging the honorific on belatedly when Hongjoong starts to glare, "seriously, it wasn't anyone. You know how the old Clave foggies would never let their people attend a thing as _unbecoming_ as a rave. They'd sooner let them marry hybrids than let those stiff-legged guard dogs have fun."

"So they were from the Korean Institute?"

"Yeah," San picks up his screwdriver again, dragging the coffee table closer so he can look at the bridge of his guitar, "they were there with a warlock friend."

"The purple-haired boy in the unbuttoned shirt?"

"His shirt _was_ buttoned, just... strategically."

"Right." Hongjoong sets his glass down and swings his legs up onto the couch so he can lie down, "So you're still not going to tell me their names?"

"What makes you think I got their names?"

Hongjoong hums thoughtfully, reaching over to comb out San's unruly, slightly damp hair. He hasn't had time to dry it because he got an idea in the shower for a modification for his guitar and it couldn't wait.

"Because you wouldn't make your poor older brother play and sing twice as long as he usually should for a crowd of that size just so you can make small talk with a bunch of angelfolk, right? I saw the way you were looking at the pink one."

"Hyung!"

"What? I have eyes, I'm gonna use them."

San grumbles a little and playfully jerks away from his hand, but Hongjoong nips the collar of his shirt with two fingers and refuses to let go, eyes shining impishly. His grip is unbreakable. 

"Fine! Pink is Kang Yeosang, black-haired dude is Seonghwa? I'm not super sure. I think I heard Yeosang call him Leader Park, so that's probably his surname. Purple is Wooyoung. Wooyoung thinks I'm cute. I think Yeosang may agree." San tries not to preen at this, but its difficult. He taps the table distractedly with his screwdriver as he relaxes against the sofa again, "I think they're both cute." 

His hyung chuckles, sounding sleepy, his fingers returning to where they'd been playing with his hair, "That's nice. You wanna meet them again?"

The sentence takes a moment to sink in. He glances over his shoulder at Hongjoong, surprised, "What do you mean?"

The older boy's eyes flicker open, scanning the whitewashed ceiling of the room. His mind clearly somewhere else, "Don't know, was just thinking that it's about time that we set down roots somewhere."

A bubble of excitement swells in his chest, "You mean it? No more travelling around? We're staying here for good?"

"That was the point, wasn't it? To find a home. It's what Uncle wanted for you guys."

"But how about Dad's debtors?" 

"I'm dealing with it. I calculated — tonight's gig gave us a decent amount, and it should pay off the last of it." 

"Right. Then you and Mingi?" Hongjoong's eyes slip close as he thinks. San turns around fully to place his chin on the crook of Hongjoong's elbow, waiting. 

"We're still sending his mixtapes to several agencies. I still have my day-job, I'm probably going to keep it for a while. Mingi says there's a music shop that's hiring, he wants to check that out while we wait."

"And Yunho's parents..." 

"He promised them that if they send him the funds and let him stay off-campus with us, he'd go to college and do his degree. Besides, he turned 21 last year so... It's not like they can force him to go back home if he doesn't want to go." His right eye cracks open and he looks at San meaningfully. 

"How about you? Do you want to join him?" 

"I..." he hesitates, his mind going back to last year, the constant looking over their shoulder, and how tough work had been, especially for Hongjoong, Mingi, and Yunho. San doesn't want to see his family that exhausted and stressed ever again. Hongjoong notices his silence, and continues. 

"I mean, you actually have an edge over the rest because of where you got your high school diploma. There are many courses involving Japanese language, but there's also other options. I've been revising through the high school topics with Jongho, he wants to take a placement test so he can complete high school here..."

He trails off, watching his younger brother's face. San, on the other hand, is thinking about college fees. To put one person through college... with what he knows about how much hyung's delivery work and the band brings in a month, with the cost of the equipment they have to rent, his mental math still brings him to a number that makes him balk. He can't put that sort of burden on his brothers, and he's sure Jongho would never stand for it either, if he knew the cost of their dream to just live semi-normal lives. 

"Hyung—" 

His protest is interrupted by the soft beeping of their door, followed by the entrance of Mingi, who has the laptop clamped under his arm and his weird new device balanced in the same hand, and holding a black bag from the convenience store in the other. Their friend's face lights up at the sight of them. 

"Oh nice hyung you're up are you okay good because I needhelpwithsomething," San sometimes wonders how Mingi says so many words in a single breath. Maybe he was a rapper in another life. 

"Slow down, slow down," Hongjoong chuckles as he sits up to make space. Mingi continues to explain the issue, all while opening the carton of milk and making Hongjoong drink it because he skipped dinner preparing for the performance and then he missed supper because he was passed out. Jongho steps out of the shower just was Yunho comes through the door, balancing a box of what looks like vegetables and fruits on his shoulder and struggling with bags of other necessities.

"What's with the box?" Jongho wonders out loud as he fishes a juicy-looking red apple from the pile when Yunho sets it down.

"The ahjumma who runs that vegetable shop downstairs was still closing up, she worked till late today. When she saw me walking home with all the shopping, she asked me what I was doing. Here, San. Catch," he stretches out a hand and snatches the slightly beaten, but still reasonably fresh pear that sails through the air, across the room, "I talked to her a little, telling her that the supermarket was out of the cheaper vegetable options. I think she felt bad for me, so she gave me all her leftover and rejected stock from today. She even gave us..."

He digs through the box for a beat, before making a triumphant sound and pulling out a punnet of... strawberries. Wow, San can't remember the last time he had a luxury like that.

"She remembers you, hyung," there's a grin on Yunho's face as he runs the fruits under the tap, "She calls you strawberry boy because of your hair. She said you always get vegetables from her and that you're really bad at choosing the good ones."

"I really am," admits Hongjoong, laughing sheepishly, "This is really so nice of her. Did you thank her?" 

"I told her that we will only buy fruits and vegetables from her from now on."

"Hyung, you're such a kiss-ass y,ou know that?" Jongho sticks his apple under the water, and darts away before Yunho can splash him.

"It's called having charm. Something you clearly don't have."

"Play nice, kids." there's no heat in Hongjoong's reprimand, mostly because he's too busy looking at whatever Mingi wants his help for. Jongho sticks out a tongue at Yunho, before running to San's side to avoid a kitchen towel being flung in his direction.

"Hey, watch it! My guitar!" San hastily starts keeping away his instrument. If these people were going to start a food fight in their cramped apartment at almost 1 a.m. in the morning, he's not going to have Byeol become collateral damage in their shenanigans. 

The night ends with them deciding to settle in for a late-night movie, huddled on the sofa. Mingi falls asleep almost instantly, the thingamajig that Hongjoong helped him tweak clutched tight in his hand and mouth hanging open as his head rests on Yunho's shoulder. Hongjoong's lying on the floor, head on Jongho's lap, eyes following the movements of the characters lazily. San leans against Yunho's legs, arm thrown around Jongho's shoulders as his younger brother gives a running commentary on the cinematography of the show in a low but earnest tone, his hands carding gently through Hongjoong's red tresses. 

San doesn't say anything, but these kinds of moments make him smile, a fire in his chest. 

_My home is you, Jongho, Mingi, and Yunho._ words from a distant memory ring in his head, and the fire burns brighter. 

_My home is wherever you guys are._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A short chapter! The next update will take about a week. Merry Early Christmas everyone!


	3. Mr. Curiosity

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Repeat after me, exposition! Is! SEXY!
> 
>  **Some guiding information:**  
>  \- for the clarity's sake, I'm listing the dispositions and (working) roles of the characters here as they change with each chapter:
> 
> PARK Seonghwa - Nephilim, Shadowhunter, member of the Clave, junior member of the Council
> 
> KIM Hongjoong - Nephilim, Keyboardist, Vocals, Songwriter, Producer, etc, older foster brother to the CHOIs
> 
> JEONG Yunho - Human, Vocals, Drummer/Percussionist
> 
> KANG Yeosang - Nephilim, Shadowhunter, member of the Clave
> 
> CHOI San - Nephilim, Lead Guitarist, Vocals, Younger foster brother of Hongjoong and older brother of Jongho
> 
> SONG Mingi - Human, Bassist, Songwriter, Producer, Resident Matchmaker
> 
> JUNG Wooyoung - Warlock, member of the Clave, Apprentice to Head Warlock of Seoul, thinks Yeosang is pretty 
> 
> CHOI Jongho - Nephilim, Lead vocalist, Rhythm Guitarist, Drummer/Percussionist, Younger foster brother of Hongjoong and younger brother of San

"Hello, this is Good Lil Boy."

"Choi San? Is this Choi San-sshi?"

Mingi pulls away from the device to make sure he hadn't grabbed his friend's phone by accident. No, this is definitely the shared phone.

"I'm sorry, this is...?"

The caller makes a frustrated sound, which is quite amusing to him, for no reason. 

"San is one of our members, but he's not available right now. Do you want me to pass on a message?"

"I just wanted to see if anyone saw something I dropped, earlier this week. Tuesday night at the Substation."

"Did you ask the club?" 

"Yeah, man, but they said no one returned anything. They said that your band had full charge of the dance floor that night, so you guys may have it."

"I didn't see anything, but I can ask my band members. What did you drop?"

"It's a talisman, looks like a little pouch tied to a silver string," the caller sighs loudly, his breath making the connection crackle, "My friend said San-sshi gave him this name card, so I figured I'd try my luck."

"Your name is...?" 

"Wooyoung, Jung Wooyoung. San gave the card to my friend, Yeosang. He should remember him, Yeosang has pink hair, is very beautiful. Doesn't talk much, but very pretty." He hears someone on the other side smack Wooyoung hard at his description, and the guy pulls away from his phones to squabble with someone. Mingi can't fully catch what they're saying, but it sounds like the person is complaining about something.

"I'll let him know. If we do end up finding it, do you want us to call you... Or?" 

"I don't have a phone though, this is a payphone," says Wooyoung, "No point dropping me a message. Could I drop by your office and ask San-sshi?" 

Mingi rubs the back of his neck a little, wondering how to explain that their "office" is the studio apartment they share, and they don't have a dining table, nor the money for five beds, so while Jongho and Mingi share the bed, everyone else sleeps on mattresses or the couch. So forget working space, they can't even afford proper sleeping arrangements. 

At that moment, an idea pops into his head. He quickly takes out his personal phone and swipes open his calendar. 

"How about this, we have an assignment north of Seoul, in Jingwan-dong, next week. I'll ask San about it, but I can't promise that he'll have it, but if he does, I'll ask him to bring it." 

"Yes, please. Do you have a date and time, where specifically?" 

"Monday evening, 6th August, after 10. You guys are shadowhunters right?" 

Wooyoung scoffs, for some reason, "Yeosang is. I'm a warlock." 

"Alright, that's great. It's not a big area and we aren't the quietest, so I'm quite sure you will find us." 

"I'll have to take your word for it, don't I?" Mingi chuckles. 

"Yup." 

"Right then. See you, I guess." 

"See ya."

As Mingi sets down the phone, a tingle of excitement runs through his fingers as he starts typing in San's number. He scored him a second date with those "cute boys" he keeps talking about. 

He's gonna flip. 

~

It's past midnight when he knocks on her office door. The trainer glances up from where she had been noting down something on a stack of paper, and nods to tell him to enter.

"Lisa noona, sorry to interrupt," the brunette hunter smiles genially as she motions for him to come in and take a seat, "did you manage to find anything?" 

She sets down her pen, lacing her fingers together as Seonghwa slides into the chair opposite and places a cup of steaming hot coffee on her table. Her slate-grey eyes are razor-sharp, keen and almost intimidating, like a hawk. It's not hard to see why Clave considers her one of their most prized hunters, internationally. 

"If I tell you," Lisa starts slowly, regarding him over the top of her clasped hands, "will you come by to take my final years for a round on the combat course?"

Ah. No wonder she agreed so readily to his request, "Have they completed the assignment I gave them the last time around? They need to match me or Yeosang with their hand-to-hand scores."

The woman scoffs and rolls her eyes, reclining in her chair, "Seriously? Park Seonghwa. What are you planning to do, fight them? You'll kill them. No one except me and maybe a handful of other seniors can match you two _demons_ on hand-to-hand." 

He laughs at her expression. Her candid nature was always so refreshing to be around — she never did have that stiff way of talking that so many other institute heads bore. Perhaps it's because she's so young, or because she didn't grow up in KOI. Where she had come from, the Clave had even lesser of a hold, and people didn't have reservations about being associated with otherworlders or demons. 

"And yet you want me, a demon, to coach the future generation of hunters? That is a direct violation of Penal Code number 441 and 637 of this Clave Law, do not consort with demons, and unnecessary endangerment of unintiated shadowhunters is strictly prohibited." he counters swiftly. Lisa groans, covering her ears. 

"I swear, you and your brother are the same. What did your old man do to y'all as children, make you two memorise every book in the library cover to cover?" Seonghwa opens his mouth to reply, but she's faster and covers it before he can even breathe a word, "Don't answer that. Just. I have your information. Will you take my class, yes or no?" 

"Mmf!" she levels him another glare at him, before letting go, "fine. One course. 30 minutes."

"One course with debriefing, 1 hour." 

"40 minutes."

"45."

"Deal." she shoots out her hand to seal it, only to roll her eyes again when he catches her forearm in a traditional Shadowhunter handhold. 

"With this, we Bind you to your Word..." 

"Why do you have to be so dramatic all the time, I swear to the heavens— just, let go of me or I'll get Leader Kim in, sic her on your ass—" 

He enjoys this lighthearted banter with his senior, and she does as well, he can tell by the way the corner of her lip twitches upwards. 

"So, you learnt something?" 

"Yeah, yeah..." she pulls out his trusty tape recorder from her drawer. It is wrapped in a cloth, alongside a gnarled hunk of metal and stone, with a note stuck to it; Lisa takes the paper and slides the recorder across the table, "I passed this down to the workshop, to Chae— I mean, Rosé, and she managed to isolate the audio. She said that as soon as she played the thing, all the demon detectors in a 10 meter radius went off, one kind of imploded on the spot. I mean, it was one of the older models that has been exposed to a firebeard demon a while back, it was already wonky anyway. Nothing valuable was damaged, the song's just strange." 

Ah, so that's what the knobbly piece of crap used to be. 

"It set off the detectors? Does Rosé sunbaenim have any idea why?" 

"She thinks that maybe the song is supposed to mimick some sort of demon energy? It's definitely the first time any of us have heard of music having demonic qualities. Demons don't know how create, they only destroy and consume." Lisa scans the paper quickly as he takes out the old tape in his recorder, sliding in a fresh one, "she went out to get more equipment to break down the song further. If you need to know more, you may need to wait, or.... you can ask the singer who wrote the song, and maybe get some of the the musical notations."

"Ah-ha, easier said than done..." Seonghwa turns the tape over between his fingers, watching the reels shift with a clack, "has she heard this anywhere before, by any chance?" 

"No, neither have I, nor anyone else who we've played the pure audio to. But one thing they've agreed upon was the fact that it made us all feel goddam uncomfortable. I _really_ don't like it, makes my skin crawl."

Sounds about right, he wants to say, but he keeps his lips sealed. He's just here for information, not to rant about that red-haired singer that his brain has been preoccupied with for the past few days. Who is he? What does he do? How did he control the demons and humans and Otherworlders? 

"Thanks, noona. Is there anything else?" 

"Yeah, so, we did as you suggested and I had Warlock Yebin to dowse for their energies, and we found out where he lives." She scribbles an address on the note that had come with the tape, "That's one weird song you've got there, Park, but why're you looking into it? Why not just hand it over to the Abnormalities Department, let them figure it out?" 

"It's a... personal project, of sorts. I want to see it all the way through." Seonghwa slides the tape into his pocket, "Don't you find it troubling?"

He suddenly finds himself being fixed upon by a pair of suspicious eyes. Perhaps he has said too much; Lisa doesn't know about the possession of the clubbers. 

"A song setting off a couple of detectors, some of which are in the workshop for repairs... It's not the most serious thing that has happened on these grounds..." Trainer Lisa says slowly. The small frown pulling at her lips tells him that it's probably time for him to take his leave— he gets to his feet, plastering a innocent smile on his face.

"True. Well, thank you so much for your help, Lisa noona." her hand clamps down on the broken detector and the address that she has written down.

"Wait." he sighs inwardly, trying to feign a look of innocence. But that never works with the trainer. Working with teens and trainees meant you always had to keep one step ahead of the rowdy youngsters, or you'll never catch up. 

"You're hiding something." he keeps his face carefully blank as he attempts to gently tug the items out from under Lisa's grip. He can feel her reading his face, like a detector. 

"You're hiding something," she repeats, as if he hadn't heard her the first time around, "aren't you, Park Seonghwa?" 

"I have no idea what you're talking about." he meets her gaze. They hold the stare for a beat, then, quite unexpectedly, Lisa's hand relaxes and he gets his stuff.

"Right." he has to hide a sigh of relief as he picks up the note and the damaged detector. The senior hunter watches him over steepled fingers, her keen eyes still suspicious. 

"Thank you for your help, noona. Let me know if you find out anything else." 

She nods, but doesn't reply. Just as he's about to turn to leave, Lisa says, her voice low, "Be careful. Secrets are dangerous, Park. You should know better than anyone else."

The warning sends a jolt of electricity down his spine. He doesn't turn to read her expression. 

"I know." 

As he slips out of the room, shutting the door behind him, he swears he hears the woman whisper.

"I really hope you do." 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Things are happening...? I'm not dating these segments, but assume they happen in chronological order, ie SH gets his info from Lisa AFTER Mingi arranges a (date) for San.
> 
> I predict chapters may get a little longer after this. I will try and update weekly.
> 
> P. S. some names are invented but yes, that _Lisa_ , _Rosé_ , and Leader _Jennie_ Kim from BlackPink. This is not BP's first appearance in this verse — Hongjoong mentions Jisoo in [give me a sticker]


	4. The Great Escape

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Warning for dubious ethics (?) lmao this whole fic rife with dubious ethics
> 
>  **Some guiding information:**  
>  \- for the clarity's sake, I'm listing the dispositions and (working) roles of the characters here as they change with each chapter:
> 
> PARK Seonghwa - Nephilim, Shadowhunter, member of the Clave, junior member of the Council
> 
> KIM Hongjoong - Nephilim (?), Keyboardist, Vocals, Songwriter, Producer, etc, older foster brother to the CHOIs, [Weapon of Choice: music, wires(?)] 
> 
> JEONG Yunho - Werewolf, Vocals, Drummer/Percussionist [Weapon of Choice: teefies omnom] 
> 
> KANG Yeosang - (?) Hybrid, Shadowhunter, member of the Clave [Weapon of Choice: Crossbow] 
> 
> CHOI San - Seelie Hybrid, Lead Guitarist, Vocals, Younger foster brother of Hongjoong and older -half-brother of Jongho, thinks WooSang are cute
> 
> SONG Mingi - Human, Bassist, Songwriter, Producer, likes souvenirs
> 
> JUNG Wooyoung - Warlock, member of the Clave, Apprentice to Head Warlock of Seoul, thinks San is cute and Yeosang is pretty
> 
> CHOI Jongho - Nephilim, Lead vocalist, Rhythm Guitarist, Drummer/Percussionist, Younger foster brother of Hongjoong and younger half-brother of San [Weapon of Choice: Sais]

"You're sure he said it's here?" Wooyoung rolls his eyes, consulting the scrap of parchment he'd scribbled the details down on. 

"For the twentieth time, yes, I'm sure, Kang Yeosang. I wrote it down."

"That's writing? Looks more like chicken scratches." Yeosang manages to dodge the gust of air the warlock sends in his direction, although his now-darkened hair does get a little more tangled in the wind.

They stop at the next lamppost to consult the map he has; The street they're on is quiet and dark. But he's guessing that it usually wouldn't be a problem, because people generally don't go to national parks in the middle of the night.

"Why are they even here at this time of the day?" he grumbles as Yeosang kicks a rock lying on the sidewalk, "Hiking at night? Gathering firewood? I swear to god, if he doesn't have my talisman, I will cry." 

"It was you who said the card gave you a good feeling. I didn't exactly force you to call them," Yeosang offers matter-of-factly, "Ooh, they have an arts center here. D'you think normies' museums are like the Clave's?"

"It's a shitshow. They don't have anything about the Craft or Otherworlders or Hybrids or any real history. It's like they erased our existence from collective memory." Wooyoung says glumly, thinking about that one time Mother had him attend a museum tour to obtain an artifact she needed, a shard of a warlock's potion jar from the early Silla dynasty. He'd found it in the end, mislabelled as a piece of an ornamental vase from Beijing. Seriously. Humans won't be able tell a cauldron from a flower pot, even if it was placed right in front of them.

"Can't blame them, we were a mess at that time. Must have been traumatising," Yeosang glances down a dingy-looking street with no cars, "I wonder if this place looks less ominous in the morning." 

"Teeming with elderly hikers with those stick thingys? Probably." 

"Maybe your mom would like to try this out. She was saying something about needing a new hobby recently." 

"I can't believe she lets you and Seonghwa call her 'mom' when I, her _biological_ son, has to call her Mother*." he complains, "If someone else heard they'd probably think both of you are her real sons and she picked me out of a dumpster somewhere." 

"To be fair, I wouldn't be surprised. You look nothing like her," Yeosang ignores his shocked gasp as he continues, "I mean both of you are warlocks, but she's so... I don't know how to describe it." 

"Kang Yeosang, if you say she's pretty and I'm not—" 

"Nah, you're pretty, in the party animal, wild child kinda way. Your mother's beautiful, like a queen. You look like you eat cereal directly out of a cereal box." 

He tries to kick the hunter in the shin for his jab, but his best friend dodges, grinning cheekily ,"Stop using that against me. What's wrong with eating cereal directly out of the box?"

"Oh, nothing at all, it's very civilised, very sanitary." 

"I always wash my hands first—" 

At that moment, an earth-shattering roar comes from down the road, in the direction of the mountain. They stop in their tracks. 

"What the hell?" 

Then another roar comes, followed by the sound of rocks smashing. This time, they don't think too much and just take off running. They arrive at the source of the noise, and what they sends a shiver down Wooyoung's spine. Yeosang looks equally taken aback. 

"Is that... Is that—" 

"Hyung, left!" 

The guitarist boy from the club that day flips out of the way as the Yeongno* whips its barbed tail in his direction. The light-haired boy who'd shouted, the one wielding a pair of large forks, slashes out at the beast's legs, drawing a pained yowl from it. 

"That's a Yeongno, isn't it, Yeosang?" he asks his friend, unable to pull his eyes away from the scene, "there hasn't been one sighted in, what..." 

"More than six hundred years, since the Japanese occupation. Since the end of Joseon nobility." Yeosang is fiddling with his crossbow, glancing back and forth from the scene to his weapon, "The Yeongnos at that time starved to death because they dissolved the aristocratic structure. It didn't make sense for any of them to remain if their source of food was gone."

He looks troubled by the information he provides, his brows pulled together in the middle as he slots an arrow into the barrel. There's a flash of red, and a figure comes catapulting from higher ground, one of the trees. It's the keyboardist from the band, and he catches the monster's tail with something thin, almost invisible in his hands. It doesn't look like much, and although the barbs on the tail manages to bite into the boy's palms, he does something quick with the wires in his bleeding hands, and the appendage is instantly pinned to the ground. The tip whips about erratically, and the Yeongno thrashes, back arching as it tries to get its tail free.

Before it can turn, an enormous, furry shape comes lunging out from the bushes, bearing down on the creature's scaly neck. The demon releases a roar of pure rage, but it is echoed instantly by a howl from whatever, or whoever, is holding it down by its neck. The hair on the back of Wooyoung's neck stands — that is, without a doubt, the hunting call of a wolf.

"They have a werewolf!?" Yeosang's eyes are wider than he's ever seen them, the gold streaks in his brown eyes almost luminescent with confusion, "Who—" 

Wooyoung turns back, muttering a spell to enhance his vision. His fingers tingle as he blinks, the dim night lightening into brighter, purple hues of his night vision. The wolf is quite large, longer and taller than the ones he's seen with the city's official packs. It doesn't have any of the signature pack tattoos or piercings on its ears, nor any fur patterns. He can't detect any other wolf signatures nearby, and no solid heat signatures apart from theirs. This either means that this wolf is newly Turned, or it never had a pack to begin with.

While they'd been preoccupied with the wolf, the blonde guitarist and his redhead friend have managed to pin the creature to the ground by rear, using some sort of wire. The Yeongno snarls, slashing wildly at its captors and flicking its trapped tail; it would've gotten a chunk out of the guitarist's shoulder had it not been for a well-placed shot by Yeosang. The young man glances in the direction of the arrow, and when he spots them, he grins so suddenly that Wooyoung's heart skips a beat.

Oh, he's _cute_. There had been way too much alcohol in his system the last time around, so he thought his vision might have been rose-tinted, but right now he's sober. And this is guy is very handsome, especially when he smiles like that. 

"Jongho, any day now!" the redhead yells. The Yeongno whips around at the call and snaps in his general direction — the man narrowly avoids it, grunting as the creature catches him with a shallow cut across his right cheek. Jongho, the one with the twin forks, crouching and moving steadily towards the monster, before making a decisive slash at the throat of the creature. It seems to work because the Yeongno collapses to the ground and starts spasming, its growls gradually turning garbled and weak. The wolf releases it and lets it fall, going close to sniff at it while it writhes on the floor. 

"Got it!" while the others had been busy incapacitating the monster, Cute Blonde Boy had been working on the lower half of the creature. At his feet now lay two thin but decently long sheets of bare pelt and a small pile of iridescent, gleaming scales. Wooyoung feels a ripple of excitement run through him. Yeongno scales are incredibly valuable and exceedingly rare. They are renowned for their magical properties. 

The wolf's ears twitch with interest as he watches the guitarist pry off a few more scals off the base or the tail. It darts forwards cautiously, avoiding the lashing tongue of the demon, and with a few, strategic swipes, messily cracks off one of the many teeth of the creature. The sound makes the redheaded hunter look up from where he's perched on a rock, carving a healing rune on his wrist for the cuts on his palms. 

"Yunho-ah." the light-coated wolf looks furtively at the redhead, yelping when it sees how exasperated he looks. Jongho is laughing, squatting beside the wolf as he pokes at the teeth with his weapon. 

"What makes it you think that Mingi hyung will want this, hyung?" Jongho asks. The wolf, Yunho he presumes, whines. Both of them look at the redhead who, after a moment of consideration, sighs and tosses a pouch for them to put the item into.

"We can see if he wants to keep one of the smaller shards, our place is cluttered enough, I don't think keeping a whole tooth helps the situation. The rest, we will try to sell, provided we can even find a buyer for this, I don't even know what it does... " 

"I could ask my mother for you." four pairs of eyes turn to Wooyoung, "She may be able to find some use for it." 

The redhead clears his throat and straightens up, smiling at the pair of them. Even in the darkness that shrouds the forest path, his hair is as bright as a neon sign. It's such a intense shade that it makes the cut on his face look black. Very eye-catching. Wooyoung loves that. 

"Hello, thanks for covering for San back there. I don't think we've been introduced," the keyboardist holds out his hand, gesturing to himself and each of the other boys standing around the dead Yeongno in turn, "I'm Kim Hongjoong, that's Choi Jongho, Choi San. Jeong Yunho is the wolf, he's probably gone off to change back into his clothes I think." 

"Jung Wooyoung, and this is Kang Yeosang," his best friend shakes his hand next. Hongjoong's eyes seem to flicker with recognition when he looks over Yeosang. 

"You did something to your hair... wasn't it pink?" 

Yeosang laughs abashedly, "that was spray-on dye. My hair is normally black." 

A glint appears in Hongjoong's eye, but he doesn't probe any further. Wooyoung interjects, breaking the awkward air, "Are all of you guys together? The wolf as well?" 

"Yeah, we are. Yunho is with us."

"His pack...?" 

"He doesn't have one," Hongjoong chuckles at this, and San is smiling. Jongho rolls his eyes and moves over to San to help him pack away the rest of their loot, "not that he hasn't been scouted before, but little rascal turned them down." 

"That's... wow," it's not normal for for wolves, especially ones as young as Yunho, to have the ability to decline joining a pack. No wonder he's unmarked, "When was he Turned?" 

"When I was 12," they glance up to see the drummer of the band rejoin them, his stride easy and a friendly smile on his face. His hair is no longer a vibrant shade of blue, but a washed-out teal, which would explain the light coating of his wolf. 

"I'm Wooyoung." 

"Yeosang." 

"Nice to meet you. San was telling us about you two. He wasn't wrong." San jumps to his feet and shoves Yunho, who's grinning from ear to ear. 

"Wrong? About?" 

"He's just spouting nonsense. Ignore him," he says Jongho lifts the bag of items they've collected and slings it over his shoulder, locking eyes with Hongjoong. 

"We should go soon. Mingi hyung will be wondering where we are." 

"Right." in that instant, Wooyoung remembers why they'd come all the way here for. 

"San-shii, did Mingi-sshi tell you we called?" 

"Oh, yes! Is this yours?" San makes his way over, side-stepping the patchwork of traps they've got the monster in. Wooyoung feels his heart leap in his chest when he sees the talisman the other boy has clasped in his hand. The deep, royal purple of the pouch looks as vibrant as ever against the silver embroidery on it's front. 

"You're a lifesaver." San's smile grows wider at his exclamation, if that's even possible. His hand is rough, but warm and strong as he presses the item firmly into Wooyoung's. It feels foreign but at the same time weirdly comforting, especially against his fingers, which, he's proud to say are much softer than even your average warlock's, thank you very much. 

Hongjoong claps his hands to get the attention of his band, and it is only then that Wooyoung realises that Yeosang had left his side to go talk to Jongho and Hongjoong. Jongho has passed him one of his fork weapons to admire. It's a rare sight — Yeosang usually quite shy, which is very often misinterpreted by others as indifference and conceit. 

"Time to go. The park warden said we only have until half past eleven before the first shift of security guards start their rounds."

"How about the body?" he asks. Surprisingly, it's Yeosang that answers. 

"It will disappear. Demon remnants never remain corporeal for very long." Yeosant offers absentmindedly as he touches the tip of the fork weapon clearly fascinated. it sounds verbatim from some hunter lecture. Trust his best friend to have the ability to regurgitate textbooks, on top of being incredible at demonhunting. 

"Hyung, I'm hungry," Hongjoong smiles, slinging an arm over the Jongho's shoulder. 

"Ice cream and waffles on me," His declaration is met by raucous cheers. Yeosang looks a little lost in the noise and crowd, but Hongjoong pats him on the back, looking from him to Wooyoung. 

"Would you like to join us?" 

A grin spreads across his face, and he nods, linking arms with San, "Sure!" 

Yeosang echoes his sentiments, looking a little surprised but grateful at the inclusion. Wooyoung smiles inwardly — apart from Wooyoung and Seonghwa, Yeosang didn't really have any friends. There aren't many hybrids living at the Institute, and the pure hunters generally don't like to associate themselves with those with Otherblood. As much as he tried to blend in, meticulously coloring his hair black and carefully hiding his slightly pointed ears, most of them know his lineage because of his and and Seonghwa's father. When your dad is the head of institute, nothing stays hidden for long.

It is nice to see him taking so well to San's band. 

Yunho takes one of the packs from Jongho and bounds ahead while Hongjoong ushers them after him. Wooyoung falls into step in front of him with San, keeping one ear on Yeosang's conversation with the other two even as he walks with the guitarist. 

"What are waffles?" he hears Yeosang ask curiously as they make their way out of the park. Cute. 

"So," San is asking him a question, "your pouch, what is it for?" 

"It's a talisman. It was given to me by someone important, it's supposed to bring me happiness. It has my name woven on it, look... " he proudly turns lifts the item to show San the hanja woven on the front of the item, "In hanja, this means friend*, which is what the woo in Wooyoung stands for." 

"It's very cool. You must have a ton of friends, huh?" 

"I get by. Hold up, may I?" he reaches for San's shoulder, and takes a strand of his blonde hair that has gotten caught in his denim jacket. The boy gives him the go ahead, and he transforms it into a dark braided cord and starts trying to thread the talisman back in. San seems fascinated by all of it, eyes wide and bright as he watches. They've since reached the national park entrance and were now on the edge of the carpark. 

"So, what are you guys? Do y'all demon hunt for fun or...?"

"Ah, we do it out of... Duty? Responsibility?" San glances at Yunho, who has leapt onto the back of a battered looking delivery truck in the parking area, where Mingi is sticking his head out from the driver's seat is waving them over-enthusiastically, "We hunt demons to protect those who don't quite understand how to protect themselves."

"So, the humans?" 

San hums as he lowers down the back panel of the truck for the rest to climb in. Mingi greets them with an excited _did you get a souvenir?_ And Yunho passes him the pouch with the tooth in it. 

"Sort of? It's more of the general integrity of society as we know it."

"Does it have to involve manipulating others to tell the truth?" he watches as it dawns upon San what he's talking about, and it makes him glance at him sideways warily. He knows that the rest are the band is listening, even as they pack their loot from the hunt away at the back of the truck.

There is no forthcoming response from San or any one else, so he continues, his tone carefully indifferent, but he is looking from band member to band member, "I don't know, it seems rather dangerous to walk around with the ability to control others and force the truth from them. If that power falls into the wrong hands..." 

"What makes you think it will?" Hongjoong's voice cuts in. He turns and sees the redhead, perched at the end of the trough, but staring holes into Wooyoung. Yeosang is waiting for them at the edge of the truck's parking lot, eyes wide as he looks between them. 

"I mean, if someone learns the song, or you accidentally teach the wrong person to play it..." he says slowly. He doesn't want to offend anyone by accident, especially since all of them have just met, and they all seem like decently nice people. 

Hongjoong is shaking his head, "Unlikely. Without our direct involvement, _Veritas_ is near impossible to use." 

"And it is not as easy as just learning the song," San adds, "Hyung is right, it's not something that can just be copied and learnt. We've been playing it for years now, but neither me nor Jjong can do it without the whole band. It doesn't work."

Wooyoung glances from San to Hongjoong. San looks confident, while Hongjoong's expression is inscrutable. There's something about the flat, emotionless look in his eye that reminds him, quite strangely, of Seonghwa. He isn't sure why. 

Then he smiles brightly, like the clouds had suddenly cleared away and giving way to the sun, breaking the moment. 

"If you're interested, we can show you how to play parts of it next time. But if we don't leave now, _Ordinary People_ is going to close." 

"We're going for ice cream and waffles? At Eden hyung's?" he turns to see Mingi hanging out of the truck window, eyes shining at the thought of dessert. Hongjoong is already sliding off the back of the truck, and ushering Jongho and Yeosang to the front with him. 

"Yes, so we should get going. Come along, there's space in front for the two of you."

The engine sputters to a start, but Wooyoung is so deep in thought that he only realises they're leaving when they pull out of the carpark, into the main street. He turns; San's eyes are on him. They are a soft, reassuring brown, flecked with silver. Almost like Yeosang's. 

"You alright?" 

"Mm-hmm. This is just quite... new to me. I've never heard of hunters using music to demon-hunt, let alone control demons." 

San gives a short laugh and shrugs, "That's Hongjoong hyung for you. He's a bit of a genius when it comes to demonhunting sometimes. Definitely unconventional, but genius." 

"Yeah, don't worry, I find it hard to keep up with him too. And we've known him a while." Yunho reassures him as the truck jolts over a pothole. The boy is reclining against the sack of scales like its a pillow, and he has something in his hands, a tiny slab of glass and metal. This must be one of those smartphones that his more unorthodox (wayward, as his mother prefers to say) friends have been raving about. 

Speaking of unorthodox... 

"You've known each other for a while... are you guys Outbred? Or did you Deviate from the Clave? Yeosang didn't say when he was telling me about what happened." 

San snorts, his light hair whipping around in the wind, "Outbred. Is that what they call us? Do they realise this makes them Inbred?" 

Now its Wooyoung's turn to laugh, as San continues, "It's so redundant, these labels. Do they call warlocks, fae, vamps, and weres Downworlders as well? Like the Westerners." 

He grins sharply, baring his abnormally sharp teeth. San and Yunho don't seem unnerved by it, unlike some of those other idiot hunters. He's gotten actual flinches from him doing that. 

"Only if they want us to call them Clave Slaves," this makes Yunho and San burst into laughter. 

"That's actually genius." Yunho manages to choke out between chortles. 

Wooyoung grins as San wipes a tear from his eye, "Is Mingi-sshi nephilim too?" 

"Nah, Mingi's human, through and through. Only Hongjoong, Jongho, and I have Nephilim parents. We're brothers, Jongho and I have the same dad, my mom's a Seelie, so I'm a halfie." 

"Oh, a Hybrid. So your blonde hair—"

"Yup, it's natural. All me. Well, plus a little bit of bleach — I had red in it before I went blonde, so it was kinda hard to get out." Wooyoung decides he likes the lighthearted way San speaks. It makes it feel like he's known him for years. 

"In KOI, people treat you differently if you have lighter hair," he recalls how he drew stares in his younger years, when he hadn't quite understood. After Yeosang explained, he made sure to always have his hair in a new, bright shade whenever he dropped by the institute. And he'll keep doing that until they stop behaving like hybrids and otherworlders are some sort of freakshow they can ogle at. His mother doesn't like him doing it, but she can't make him do anything he didn't want to do. 

"Hongjoong and Jongho..." 

"Jongho's mom was a hunter so he's full nephilim. He's blonde by choice, that lil brat. Our parents were defactors though, they didn't like the Clave that much. We aren't too sure whether Hongjoong's dad is nephilim or not, but his natural hair is even lighter than mine. It's like... white." 

"Maybe hyung's just an albino. It that possible?" Yunho asks as he taps away at his device, tongue between his teeth from how hard he's concentrating as the truck rumbles over the uneven road. 

"We will have to ask Hong hyung. I'm not great with all this Dolphinism stuff." 

"Darwinism." corrects Yunho, not even glancing up. 

"That's what I said."

"What's a Darwin?" Wooyoung asks as San slings an arm over his shoulder. 

"Some dude who really liked birds. Like really, really obsessed with them." 

"... I'm not sure I understand, but okay."

"It's okay. I'm just as clueless as you are. I went to normie school but I barely listened to their stuff," San complains, "Please come around more often, they always make me and Jongho feel so dumb about everything."

"Are you saying I'm clueless?" He bumps his shoulder playfully against San's; the other's face lights up with mischief as he tries to push him back, only for the vehicle to jerk as it goes over a hump. San ends up missing entirely, sprawling across Wooyoung's outstretched legs and sending them both into a fit of giggles. The boy's laughter warms Wooyoung like an open campfire, and he wants to pull his new friend into a hug. 

"I'm going to hold you to that," he says when they finally manage to talk without giggling. They are pulling into a more busy part of town now, the streets lit up with rows upon rows of lights and neon signs. Seoul can be so pretty at night. 

"Hold me to?" 

"The invitation to join you guys more often. Clueless is my middle name, and misery loves company, doesn't it?" 

He thinks that San's toothy smile could rival the city lights, any day. 

"Deal."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Yeosang and Seonghwa call Wooyoung's mother 어머니 omoni, a way to address your own mother or a mother of someone close to you. Wooyoung has to call his mother 모친 mochin, which is the utmost polite and formal way to address one's, or someone else's mother. It's almost equivalent to calling your mom 'Mother' with the capital M, except I would argue that its even more formal than that.
> 
> *Yeongno 영노 = an ancient mythical monster from Korean folklore. The myth of this monster states that if it eats a hundred corrupt or evil noblemen, it will be allowed to go to heaven. It's been illustrated in many different form, so I'm just assuming it has teeth and a tail and maybe several legs? And eyes I guess just imagine a large thing of scales and teeth roaring at you. That should be terrifying enough. 
> 
> *hanja (traditional written characters) for Wooyoung's name = 友荣，with 友 standing for Woo and having the meaning of friend.
> 
> The chapter titles are all taken from punk rock or indie songs I listened to in my younger (?) years. Spotify playlist coming soon?


	5. Come As You Are

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Another warning for dubious ethics yes tasty
> 
>  **Some guiding information:**  
>  \- for the clarity's sake, I'm listing the dispositions and (working) roles of the characters here as they change with each chapter:
> 
> PARK Seonghwa - Nephilim, Shadowhunter, member of the Clave, junior member of the Council. PARABATAI: Kang Yeosang [Weapon of Choice: knives] 
> 
> KIM Hongjoong - Nephilim (?), Keyboardist, Vocals, Songwriter, Producer, etc, older foster brother to the CHOIs, [Weapon of Choice: music, wires(?)] 
> 
> JEONG Yunho - Werewolf, Vocals, Drummer/Percussionist [Weapon of Choice: teeth and claws, babeh] 
> 
> KANG Yeosang - (?) Hybrid, Shadowhunter, member of the Clave. PARABATAI: Park Seonghwa. [Weapon of Choice: crossbow] 
> 
> CHOI San - Seelie Hybrid, Lead Guitarist, Vocals, Younger foster brother of Hongjoong and older -half-brother of Jongho [Weapon of Choice: katana] 
> 
> SONG Mingi - Human, Bassist, Songwriter, Producer
> 
> JUNG Wooyoung - Warlock, member of the Clave, Apprentice to Head Warlock of Seoul
> 
> CHOI Jongho - Nephilim, Lead vocalist, Rhythm Guitarist, Drummer/Percussionist, Younger foster brother of Hongjoong and younger half-brother of San [Weapon of Choice: sais]

Seonghwa hadn't planned on scouting out the address that Lisa'd given to him, but he finds himself with a free evening. With Yeosang out at another party with Wooyoung, it just seems like too good an opportunity to pass up. He could go look around without his parabatai getting suspicious — if Yeosang knew, he'd probably want tag along. He didn't want his younger brother to get wrapped up in Clave business out of his purview. Or whoever this band of people were.

So he ends up in the dark alley adjacent to an old apartment block. Even with the map, took some time to find; this is a messy area of town, poorly lit and laid out haphazardly. The building that he's watching is grey and dull, with a convenience store on the first floor and a neighbourhood grocery shop down the road. Some of the buildings surrounding it look abandoned, even the apartment block itself looks dated and old. So this is where they live. 

He waits for almost an hour before anything happens.

"Jeong Yunho, your beanie."

"Ah, oops! Thanks hyung." the redhead joins the band of boys at the entrance of the building. The tallest boy, the drummer, Seonghwa thinks, stoops slightly to let the smaller boy neaten his hair into the hat for him, still chatting to the others. The keyboardist is wearing a pair of gray gloves, and all of them are wrapped up in light autumn jackets. Seonghwa supposed it's cold out but he wouldn't know — why don autumnal wear when you can just carve a warming rune? 

One of the blonde boys, not the one that Yeosang talked to, whines as the red-haired keyboardist flings a scarf over his shoulders, deftly looping it around his neck before he can take it off.

"Hyung, I don't want this. It's already warm enough with all these layers."

"Hey, there's a gig this weekend. You can't afford catch a cold and lose your voice, Choi Jongho." the boy grumbles something about it being impossible for nephilim to catch colds, but he doesn't take the scarf off. Another tall boy, the one that had been on the big, deep-sounding guitar, pokes Jongho in the face, laughing as he sulks. 

"You sure you can't come with us, hyung? It'll only be for a short while, it'll be fun."

"I've got things to settle. You boys go ahead." there's a jangle as the redhead places what looks to be keys in the tall, dark-haired boy's hand, "Drive safe, and if you all drink, take public transport back. No racing other trucks on the road, no matter how clear the roads are. I'm talking to you, Song Mingi." 

He's met by a slew of half-hearted protests, but he waves them all off, chasing them down the steps. The young man watches with one hand in his pocket as they pack into a beat-up truck parked just off the side of the road. How humans ever manage to get from point A to point B in those mechanical death traps always mystifies him. But well, its their grave, after all. 

"Bye Hongjoongie hyung!" 

"See you later, hyung!" 

"Stay safe, have fun! Bye!" the older boy calls after the youngsters as the truck starts up and they pull out of the parking lot. Seonghwa watches him curiously as he waves them off, watching them round the corner. They are a little strange, not your conventional group of friends, but also not biological family, it seems, if the different surnames were anything to go by. They had that boy they talked to last week, Choi San, then Jeong Yunho, Choi Jongho, Song Mingi. And Red was Hongjoong, he mentally notes, Hongjoong. An uncommon name.

They seemed close. Watching them reminds him a bit of how he's like with Wooyoung and Yeosang. So, a kind of family, then. 

He wonders if he should step out of the shadows then and there and confront Hongjoong, but something holds him back. It turns out to be a good decision, because there's a small musical tone, and Hongjoong pulls out a device from his pocket. That's one of those human communication devices. The one they use these days to talk with, but instead of calling, they just tapped the screen repeatedly and waited. 

He flattens himself against the wall as the boy walks away from the building and heads up the road, the opposite direction of where the truck went. His eyes are fixed to the screen as he goes on his way. Seonghwa traces out his invisibility and silent rune as he waits for the other to pass, before following from a distance. 

To anyone else, the other boy probably looks like a normal teen, maybe slightly older with his confident gait, but already Seonghwa can see why he was so unnerved by the other's presence since that day at the club. He'd already noticed it from the first meeting, but between the five of them, not one of them has a single angelic mark, or indication of rune carvings. It makes sense, seeing how only initiated hunters were able to receive the angelic mark from the Clave, and being defacted or outbred hunters, they probably had theirs removed or never had any in the first place. But to fight demons, you almost always need runes. Permanent rune tattoos make things quick, but even if you didn't have them, your arms would be littered with marks from past battles. They usually carve them in easily accessible places, arms, necks, chest. But these kids have none at all. 

Hongjoong stops by the side of the main road, still staring at his phone. He's not smiling anymore, like he'd been as he waved his boys off... whatever he is looking at must bother him because even from the distance Seonghwa's keeping, he can see the tense lock of his jaw, and the furrow between his brows. 

He doesn't look happy. 

He sticks out a hand to flag down a cab, glancing up in Seonghwa's direction. Seonghwa ducks behind the wall of a bus stop, hoping that he didn't see him, but the other young man is staring at his phone screen again, frowning. He looks and sees a cab slowing and going towards Hongjoong; Seonghwa quickly flicks a tracking token onto its bumper as it goes past him, his enhanced hearing detecting a muted 'thunk' sound as the item makes contact with the metal. Hongjoong doesn't even seem to notice — If he does, he doesn't react to it at all. Could it be... Maybe he's human after all?

He hangs around the bus stop, watching the cab pull away as he palms the token's vessel in his hand, waiting for it to stop pulsing before he portals to the first location. The first three stops the taxi makes are traffic lights, and then there's nothing for a while. Fifteen minutes later, the car stops again, and this time, the token brings him to a quiet, somewhat deserted industrial area, in an unfamiliar location. Seonghwa squats behind a stack of wooden pallets as he watches the red-haired boy pay the cab driver and steps out of the car. The cab driver is barely around the corner when he hears a distant rumble of one of the industrial garages opening, and the soft murmur of low voices. They're not alone.

"Look who it is, Choi Jinwoo's little keeper. Back so soon for more?" Seonghwa sticks close to the shadows, watching with narrowed eyes as a greasy-looking, middle aged man smoking a pipe ambles up to Hongjoong and claps him on the back with his meaty hand. Even he can tell that this makes the redhead uncomfortable — he can almost see the tension evaporating off Hongjoong's slight shoulders. 

He is pretty sure he's still invisible and soundless to the average human eye, but he doesn't want to assume anything about the people that are slowly gathering around the smaller male. These aren't your usual breed of normies; for one, he can smell the sweat and smoke rolling off them from where he's hidden. There is also an acidic, abrasive scent of alcohol overlaying the usual flat, grassy smell of humans. 

"I am just here to pay off Uncle's credit." 

Grease scoffs at Hongjoong's statement, throwing a heavy arm around his shoulders. 

"Why're you acting like we're strangers, you little shit? Between us and your Uncle Jinwoo, god bless his departed soul, we practically raised you and your brothers." He can't see Hongjoong's face from where he's standing; Seonghwa wonders if he should intervene, "We owe him so much after all, he's the one who helped us build the organisation when we first started."

"How much do I have left?" 

One of the other men scoffs, flicking open his lighter before closing it again, "327 million won, boy. Are you sure—" 

There's a rustle as the smaller man shakes off the thugs leaning on his shoulder, and reaches into his worn denim jacket to pull out a paper bag. He thrusts it into the hands of Grease. 

"327 million. Counted it myself." 

One of the men gave a mock whistle, while Grease raised his brows, clearly surprised. 

"Who'd you rob to get that much money? Should I call the police?" 

Hongjoong's head shoots up, and he turns to level a cold stare at the man holding the bag, "I earned it myself. My brothers and I. So there's no need to call the police. Even if you did, I'm sure they'd have more to say to you than me, a small insignificant teen with no money." 

The look on Grease's face grows so menacing, Seonghwa was almost certain someone had flicked the light off somewhere. He matches glares with the band leader as he opens the paper bag, only looking away to count the bank notes. The men surrounding Hongjoong suddenly look very tall, very intimidating. Seonghwa swallows nervously in the other man's stead, because Hongjoong doesn't budge, doesn't blink. 

Lighter clicks his tongue, the sound cutting through the tension as Grease hands the cash off for someone to count, "Kids these days, no manners at all. You didn't let me finish. Your dear Uncle owes us 327 million, but in the time that you've taken to pay us, we could have almost _doubled_ his little loan."

Hongjoong makes an angry sound in his throat, but Grease grabs the back of his neck as a clear warning. The men that aren't looking at the money are now either chuckling under their stinking breaths, or grinning. Hongjoong looks pale in the streetlight. It's a set-up of some sort. 

"So, accounting for the damages incurred when your dear uncle up and ran, about 100.3 million won, and then compounding it by 10% interest weekly ... the number we should get is... " One of the lackeys has what looks like an analog calculator out, keys clacking away. 

He blinks, there's a blur, and suddenly, Grease's hand is groping air. A few of the men let out shouts of surprise. Hongjoong is gone. 

"Where'd he go?" 

"He was just here!" 

"Did you see where he—" 

There's a metallic thump from the stack of barrels beside the entrance of the garage opposite the gang. A glimmer of red. Hongjoong. 

"Crazy bastard. Juoh, shoot him." Seonghwa jumps to his feet. One of the men was loading up a pistol but instead of pulling out a weapon of some sort, the redhead parts his lips, inhaling gently. 

Then he starts whistling. 

Seonghwa wants to pull out his knives, but he stops short when he notices the immediate change in behaviour of the men getting ready to gun the young man down. There's a clatter as they drop their weapons, expressions going slack. 

Like dominos, the men start to fall. But Hongjoong doesn't stop whistling. He leaps down from the barrel and lands on the ground with barely a sound, his song as clear as a well of spring water.

This melody is different from the one at the club that day. Where the other one was low-pitched, haunting, the whistle tonight was high and silvery, like a moon on a clear night. Even from where he is crouching, Seonghwa can hear each individual note, each breath, like he is exhaling into Seonghwa's ear instead of yards away. It vibrates through his rib cage, like a train whistle. 

Seonghwa stays where he is as Hongjoong cross over to heap of humans on the ground. After a few more bars, the tune stops. The yard is as quiet as a cemetery. 

He watches as Hongjoong reaches for one of the men, flipping him face up. The human is as limp as a dead body, but he can see he's still breathing. He takes the packet of money from the man's hand. 

Hongjoong does this to the other men, flipping some with his hand, others with his foot. The men appear to be merely sleeping, but the redheaded man definitely did something. He isn't sure what it is yet, but—

"I know you're there." 

His breath stops in his chest. It takes a beat to realise his cover is blown, so he slowly stands out of his crouched position behind the pallets. He is right in guessing that the other boy has nephilim in him— its the only reason why he can see and hear him, even with his runes activated. 

His bright red hair has darkened to a dull, rusty mauve in the night. It makes his large, elvish like eyes look hooded and cold, "Park... Seonghwa, isn't it?" 

"You know my name." the statement falls between them, like a wall. 

"Yeosang told San. I'm assuming you know San?" 

"The guitar boy. Had a katana. And you're Hongjoong." 

"Correct." the keyboardist treads carefully over the remainder of the humans and walks to him. With a bit of a start, Seonghwa realises that Hongjoong is about half a head shorter than him. Strange. He didn't seem that small that day.

"How long have you known I was tailing you?" 

"Long enough." Seonghwa has to bite down on the urge to roll his eyes. Another one that speaks in riddles. It must run in the whole group, "What can I do for you tonight, Park-sshi?" 

"Did you kill them?" 

The boy lets out a short bark of laughter, a sudden sound in the empty yard, "No, I didn't kill them. I just made them forget."

"Forget?" 

"Yes. The song gets them to forget my name, my face, who I am. None of them will be able to remember me." 

"Why? How long will it last?" 

Hongjoong shrugs, "Does it matter? They are gangsters."

"They are people. They have lives. They're worth as much as you and me — what if you messed it up? What if they don't remember anything at all? You'd have destroyed their lives."

A fire flashes in Hongjoong's eyes, and he rounds up on Seonghwa, "And they'd deserve it. If they hadn't been so ruthless, so greedy, if they hadn't cared so little about _our_ lives, I wouldn't be here. None of us would be in this mess. We wouldn't have to live like this, i would still have my family, and my brothers would still have their father." 

Seonghwa feels his blood turn to ice. His brothers would still have their—

"Who... Your brothers?" 

Hongjoong looks away, "San and Jongho. These men murdered their father in cold blood because he told them that he wasn't going to give in to them anymore. The only good thing is that they did it while San and Jongho were out of the country at that time, spending their summer holidays with relatives."

"And you?"

Hongjoong goes quiet. He paces over to Lighter, who lies sprawled on the floor, sleeping like a log. His face is shrouded in the shadows, and Seonghwa can't read it.

"Someone had to stay behind to help my uncle pay off his debt." the implication makes the hair on the back of his neck rise.

"So you're the one that found him?" 

Hongjoong lets the question hang in the air, tugging mutely at his left glove. His set of his jaw told Seonghwa all he needed to know.

"Hongjoong-sshi..."

"It's none of your business." when the boy turns to leave, Seonghwa grabs the hand that's tucked in his pocket without thinking. The act elicits a short hiss of pain— oh crap—

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to grab you that hard." the redhead is backing away now, the hand he'd grabbed accidentally now cradled gingerly to his chest. 

"It's not you." 

Had he gotten hurt while somehow, during the altercation? Come to think of it, he hasn't seen the man using his left hand since back at the apartment. Has it been in his pocket the whole time...?

He reaches for the sleeve of Hongjoong's jacket before he can even turn away and pulls. Veins of ash gray and green are streaking down and out from under the woollen fabric of the glove.

"Your hand...!" the keyboardist wrenches his hand out of his grasp and takes off running. But Seonghwa's strides are longer, and Hongjoong's swiftness has long faded, so he rounds up on him, easily. 

"Leave me alone. It's none of your business." 

"What happened? Is it venom—"

"No, it's just—I'm fine, you can't fix it—"

"If an iratze can't heal it, then it's most definitely not fine. Is it demonic in nature?" 

"It's—" 

"I swear to the Angels, if you say its nothing, I will call your boys." 

Hongjoong startles, "You know their numbers?" 

Seonghwa crosses his arms, equally defiant, "No I don't, but Yeosang and Wooyoung do. I can get to them in half a second. And if I'm not wrong, Wooyoung recently bought a phone..." 

Hongjoong seems to consider his threat, eyes narrowing. 

"Why are my injuries of any concern to you anyway?" 

"I need to... request something of you. Or rather, your services. And you will not be able to render such services if you're, well..." 

The doubt that is clear on his face makes Seonghwa sigh. 

"I am serious. We need your help. There's some things that even the Clave can't control." 

"And what are these things?" 

Seonghwa takes out his teleporting device, "I'll tell you if you let me help you. An action for an answer." 

"It's not even a fair trade." Seonghwa had never noticed this before, but Hongjoong has very intelligent eyes. When he wasn't smiling, they looked right into your soul, shards of obsidian glass. 

"I know. Who said it had to be?" 

Hongjoong considers, flexing his bad hand. He catches a wince, which the other quickly hides in a lip bite. 

"Fine." 

"Fine," he repeats, his heart leaping in his chest. Great. Step one, complete. He holds out his arm, and ignores the scoff that he receives for his formal gesture, pretending to be busy calibrating the location onto his device. It's done in a beat, and in that time Hongjoong has reluctantly clamped onto his proferred forearm with his right hand.

"Let's go?" he asks. 

A nod. 

"Let's." 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> An early update because I felt like it! Enjoy, and to everyone still in the weekend can i get a hallelujah (not meant to be religious in any manner, i just like hallelujahing)
> 
> Will add more notes later, icant thinknnow
> 
> Edit didnt add any notes in the end because i misplaced my brain cell


	6. Time-bomb

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Warning for BLOOD, dubious relationship / wooing (pun intended) behaviours
> 
>  **Some guiding information:**  
>  PARK Seonghwa - Nephilim, Shadowhunter, member of the Clave, junior member of the Council. PARABATAI: Kang Yeosang. [Weapon of Choice: knives] 
> 
> KIM Hongjoong - Nephilim (?), Keyboardist, Vocals, Songwriter, Producer, etc, older foster brother to the CHOIs. PARABATAI: Choi San. [Weapon of Choice: music, wires(?)] 
> 
> JEONG Yunho - Werewolf, Vocals, Drummer/Percussionist. [Weapon of Choice: teeth, claws, and attitude] 
> 
> KANG Yeosang - Seelie Hybrid, Shadowhunter, member of the Clave. PARABATAI: Park Seonghwa. [Weapon of Choice: crossbow] 
> 
> CHOI San - Seelie Hybrid, Lead Guitarist, Vocals, Younger foster brother of Hongjoong and older -half-brother of Jongho, happy bracelet giver. PARABATAI: Kim Hongjoong. [Weapon of Choice: katana] 
> 
> SONG Mingi - Human, Bassist, Songwriter, Producer, thinks magic is cool. 
> 
> JUNG Wooyoung - Warlock, member of the Clave, Apprentice to Head Warlock of Seoul. 
> 
> CHOI Jongho - Nephilim, Lead vocalist, Rhythm Guitarist, Drummer/Percussionist, Younger foster brother of Hongjoong and younger half-brother of San. [Weapon of Choice: sais]

San's phone chirrups as he waves goodbye to Hongjoong from the back of the truck. His parabatai and brother waves back, a fond smile on his face. 

_message me when u r near! my mother has just gone out. - wy_ his chat with Wooyoung pops open when he unlocks his screen. 

He grins to himself. The boy really wasn't lying when he said he wanted to hang out with them. Wooyoung had gotten his personal number during supper that day, promising that he would go out and buy a smartphone to message him with. He didn't think the other would actually do it, until a message saying _hi its me - wy_ popped up in his phone yesterday.

He and Wooyoung have been texting nonstop since then; the warlock still signs off every message, and San thinks it's just the most adorable thing ever. 

It's actually so exciting, having new friends outside of their little family that understood the two worlds they lived in. The other boys are excited too; Jongho has been talking about meeting Yeosang and Wooyoung again since Monday, and Mingi wants to show them the device he'd made for them to detect demons. Yunho suggested they take his bongos and San's ukulele along. Yeosang had expressed some interest about modern instruments — he'd particularly liked the bongo cat memes and wanted to know what the instruments were. They'd wanted to take Hongjoong's MIDI keyboard too, but San and Yunho got caught red-handed at the last minute, trying to smuggle it out in a huge duffel bag. Well, maybe next time then. 

They enter one of the oldest parts of Seoul, and San realises with a start where exactly the postal code that Wooyoung has given him leads. He lives in one of the traditional houses in Gahoe-dong, where owners were usually well-to-do, or inherited the property from their ancestors, who were Joseon nobility. Knowing his background, it is likely that Wooyoung is the latter. Warlocks and nephilim have similar lifespans, and although he and Wooyoung were the same age, his mother sounds like she comes from a different era altogether, if Wooyoung's comments about her were anything to go by. 

"Mingi hyung says he thinks he can't drive in there," Jongho announces, sticking his head out of the frontseat window when they pull to a stop on the roadside. He can see why. The roads here are small and narrow, the houses built low and tight against each other, separated by walls of natural stone and wood. 

Crap. They're a ten minute walk away from the place, and Hongjoong is the only decent navigator in their troupe. All of them had the propensity to get desperately lost, not because they were bad at reading maps, but primarily because they were easily distracted. 

"So... Do we walk?" Yunho asks as their friend kills the engine and they all clamber out of the truck. San scratches his chin, before sending out a quick message to Wooyoung.

**_Hey man, we can't drive in. Should we walk?_ **

There's a beat of silence as he waits; Mingi and Jongho join them by the streetlight. Then there's a crack of what honestly sounds like lightning, and all of them yell and scream, jumping away from the source of the mini explosion of sound and smoke. 

"Hey! You guys made it!" San coughs, swatting away the fumes to see Wooyoung in the spot they'd just been standing in, under the lamp post, a huge, shit-eating grin on his face. 

At that moment, San's phone beeps feebly with a new message, _ok woo young is coming - ys._ Very helpful. 

"Dude, I lost about ten years of my life," complains Mingi as the warlock waves cheerily at them, "how'd you know where we were?" 

"Easy! There are only that many main roads surrounding this area, and I honed in on San's energy using this," he tugs out the talisman that he'd returned to him, and its only after a beat that San realises that he's not trying to show them the pouch, but the braided cord that... Oh. 

"My hair. You can track me with that?" 

"Not precisely, but I can get a good feel about where you are," the other three are looking between him and Wooyoung as San's ears turn pink; The warlock seems to realise belatedly that this may not be something that any of them are used to. 

"Ah, y'all don't do this, do you? I forgot to ask if that's okay," now its Wooyoung's turn to look ashamed, "We warlocks usually exchange personal items with each other to dowse* with, for functional purposes or emergencies. Like... detectors, of sort. Is... is that okay?" 

"It's ok," he says quickly, trying to will his ears to stop burning up. He can feel Jongho's eyes boring into the back of his skull, and there's a cheeky grin pulling at the ends of Yunho's mouth. Trust him to give the boy he's interested in a _literal piece of himself_ on their second meeting. He's never going to hear the end of this. 

Wooyoung seems relieved at this, and he claps his hands together, drawing the attention away from San's slowly reddening face. 

"Have you guys portalled before?" 

They all answer differentially. Jongho and San technically have, they portalled once during their training in Japan, but Mingi and Yunho have never before. The grin that takes over Wooyoung's face is fantastically impish. 

"Shall we?" 

They come out the other side with Mingi practically screaming, and it takes a moment to get him to stop freaking out for them to realise that he's not upset, just excited. Wooyoung giggles as Mingi asks to be portalled again, but this time to the convenience store to get some snacks, and he obliges sportingly. It's only after they've gone that Yeosang tells them that Wooyoung has a secret stash full of normie snacks, so there's no shortage of food at all. San thinks it's just the best thing, how easily their two new friends are already taking to their antics. It makes the fire in his heart glow a little warmer.

By the time the other two come back, they've already got a kettle on the open fire ( _they have a fire pit, so cool_ ) for tea and Yunho is teaching Yeosang how to tune the ukulele with Jongho's perfect pitch. 

"Woah! WOAH!" they laugh as Mingi starts describing how portalling feels incredible, how there's a * ** _tingle_** * and a _whoosh_ and suddenly you're somewhere else. Wooyoung seems a little abashed, but pleased as Mingi tells him that ' _magic is so cool_ '. Yeosang strums his first chord on the ukulele, a clear, lightly twangy C major, and he nearly drops the instrument in the fire because he starts clapping in amusement. 

San smiles and smiles, and his heart is so full. 

The night dwindles on, and they lounge on the beautiful wooden pavilion overlooking of what honestly looks like a luxurious Hanok* from the Joseon dynasty, with more wings and rooms than San can count in a glance. The primary courtyard is massive, extending from where their pavillion stood next to the main house, down a flight of stone stairs and into a landing the size of half a football court. There was greenery everywhere too, the compound dotted with clusters of flora and tall, slender trees. The whole thing was bordered by a stone wall that stood slightly taller than Yunho. 

"I didn't know this area had houses this big. How much land does your mom own?" San asks, marvelling at how the entrance of the house sits so far off in the distance, that its the size of San's little finger. 

"It's a magic trick," explains Yeosang, because Wooyoung is busy trying to match and beat Yunho at some pitch game. At the current note he's on, the warlock is practically screaming.

"A magic trick?" Jongho asks curiously, propping his chin up on one of the bongos. 

"Yeah. The whole area should technically be a seventh of its current size and on flat ground, but by elevating the whole thing and with a simple Expansion charm," Yeosang snaps his fingers and mimicks the sound of a balloon getting inflated, "but none of these plants are Jung Wooyoung's, though. He kills every living thing he touches." 

"I heard that!" 

"I mean, he flourishes like a blooming flower, with this much growing space," Wooyoung nods in approval at Yeosang's correction, and blows him a kiss for good measure, which makes the tips of Yeosang's pointed ears blush. 

"Finally, someone with ears like San's," Mingi chortles. Jongho rolls his eyes. 

"Please, hyung, his are worse. Yeosang-shii's turn pink, I can make a whole batch on s'mores on San hyung's when he's embarrassed." 

"Hey, I'm right here!" San says, incredulous. 

"What are s'mores?" 

Luckily, Wooyoung has marshmallows in his hidden stash, although it takes some time to explain to him what they are. Five minutes later sees them trying to teach Yeosang and Wooyoung how to roast them over the woodfire they have. 

"See, you have to keep turning, Wooyoung-sshi, so that they don't burn." Mingi explains. 

"Ah! I get it! And please, don't call me Wooyoung-sshi, only my mother does that when she's mad at me," the contorted face that Wooyoung makes makes Yunho laugh, "Let's all call each other comfortably — which year were you born?"

"I think we're all born in the same year," says San, "Yunho, Mingi, and I are 1999, and I know Yeosang-sshi— I mean, Yeosangie is 1999 too."

He glances at the boy for confirmation, and gets a small, bashful smile in return. It's adorable how the other's cheeks wash a light pink when hes embarrassed. 

Wooyoung claps excitedly, nearly dislodging his s'more from his chopstick, "Awesome, I'm the same age as Yeosang too."

"Hold up, does that mean I have to call everyone hyung, again?" Jongho complains, making San laugh, "this blows! Why don't I ever get to be the hyung?" 

"It's ok, you still look the oldest amongst all of us." supplies Yeosang, smiling brightly. There is a pause as the statement sinks into their heads, and in that lapse the hunter seems to realise that it may not have been as comforting a statement as he'd meant it to be. 

"Oh, no, sorry, Jongho, I didn't mean you look old," he starts flusteredly, "I just meant, like, y'know, you are really mature for your age, and—" 

Too late. Wooyoung nearly drops his s'more as he snorts, before collapsing into a fit of uncontrollable giggles. Mingi and Yunho have collapsed over each other in slightly hysterical but silent laughter, San claps so hard that he just drops his entire disposable chopstick (it's a good thing he'd already eaten his sweet treat) into the firepit.

Jongho's cheeks turn a pinched crimson as he buries his face in his hands, as San attempts to comfort him through his own snorts. Yeosang keeps going, involuntarily doing more and more damage, "Everyone, everyone stop laughing at Jongho, I didn't mean it like that. Jongho-yah, you've got to understand, I was talking about maturity and, like a sense of _style_ —"

They're having such a wonderful time, joking around and filling themselves up with food and energetic banter that San almost forgets the thing that he's prepared, until Wooyoung asks him for help with finding more fun things to download into his phone, and he feels the gifts in his pocket. 

"Ah! Wooyoung, Yeosang, I almost forgot..." the two boys perk up at their names being called, and the others pause their conversation to listen to what he has to say. 

"Here, I made these for the two of you." he opens the pouch that he has brought and fishes out the items he'd made.

"So that's why you traded me for my souvenir, you sneaky lil—" Mingi's mouth is unceremoniously covered by Yunho, whose eyes are widening at the side of the bracelets with the tooth fragments woven in, like a precious stone.

"Mingi wasn't super into the tooth thing, he said it looked too scary for him, so I took it and made it into bracelets," he holds the two braided items out neatly on his hands, "they're for you!" 

"San-sshi..." the brilliant shock at surfaces in Yeosang's eyes makes his ears burn again. 

"It's not much," he says sheepishly as Wooyoung slowly takes the bracelet with the purple and black design from him, "and just... Just San is good, Yeosang-ah." 

"This is beautiful. It looks like—"

"I tried to do it in the same style as the one you made out of... The one you made." San sees Yunho purse his lips into the shape of a whistle, and shoots him a 'shut up' glare. His best friend stops, but he's still smiling. 

Yeosang takes the one he'd made out of red and black, his beautiful eyes still wide. 

"I hope that's okay. I couldn't find any pink, like your hair, so—" 

"My favourite colour is red." says the hunter quietly, as he loosens the strap slowly, then tightens it again. The air is so thick, San feels like he could cut it with a knife.

"So...you like it?" 

"Like it? Choi San," Wooyoung's exclaimation breaks the tension like hammer. He already has it on his wrist, and is waving his new accessory in front of them, his grin so wide, San feels his heart skip a beat, "I _love_ it. This is perfect. _You're_ perfect." 

He's pretty sure his face is the colour of the red cord he'd used for Yeosang's bracelet, "Really?" 

"Really. This is the best thing ever." Wooyoung glances up to meet his eyes, and San can see that he means it. Which makes him even more bashful, "Thank you, San-ah."

"Thank you." Yeosang adds softly, his eyes shining in the firelight as he tries on the bracelet. 

San wants to jump and shout because he's bursting with joy, but he manages to contain his happiness in a huge, huge smile. 

"It's my pleasure. Thanks for having my back, I mean, having our backs that day, with the Yeongno." 

"We—" at that moment, the soft tingling of windchimes interrupts Wooyoung's sentence. The warlock glances up. 

"There's someone at the door." 

"Go get it, then." Yeosang says, eyes still on the bracelet on his hand. It's a fantastic colour choice, San thinks belatedly, it contrasts nicely against the smooth, pale skin of Yeosang's wrist. 

Wooyoung vanishes in a puff, and reappears in at the front door, in a distance. Jongho turns to him, "How did you make it so fast? We only caught the Yeongno two days ago. Also, I didn't know you could make bracelets, hyung." 

"Well, I didn't. But there were some videos online so I just..." Mingi's clap makes them jump, with its sudden loudness. 

"Ah! That's why you were hogging the computer last night, and you stayed up until Hongjoong hyung came back from work!" 

Yunho is grinning from ear to ear, and Jongho is smiling a little too. He wants to evaporate, but Yeosang barely glances up at Mingi's statement. There is a soft look of quiet happiness on his face. He wishes he could capture that expression forever.

There's a crack and a puff of smoke and Wooyoung is back beside him. He lunges at San and hugs him, before waving the bracelet on his wrist excitedly, again. He smells like the trees and the wood they're using for the fire, and dried leaves. And he's still beaming happily. So, so cute. 

"Thank you! This is so cool." 

"Way to set the standard, Sannie," jokes Yunho, as Yeosang asks, "Who was it at the door?" 

"An old regular of my mother's. He needed to pick up some mandrake root." 

"Wooyoung hyung, by the way, what did you end up doing with the scales we got from the monster?" Jongho asks. San is still basking in the happiness of the successful gift giving. Yeosang is listening to the conversation, but every now and, San sees him looking at the bracelet in his hand, as if he needs to check that its real.

Wooyoung launches into the story how he'd taken one of the scales he'd bought from them that day and brought it to his mother, who demanded to know where he'd stolen it from, and after he said he'd bought them, and how he knew it was real because he saw them kill the monster, she demanded to know where she could get more. He's midway through describing how his mother was so excited by the item, he didn't see her room firelight go out until nearly dawn ( _she never deviates from her bedtime, unless she has important Clave duties or an exciting experiment going on_ ) when the tingle of windchimes interrupt again.

"What the— Again?! What are all these people thinking, doing house calls at nearly eleven freakin' pm— " 

He vanishes with a crack, and appears again in a distance, at the door. San watches him open it, biting into the melty marshmallow that Jongho hands him when he hears a faint, shocked, "Hyung? What are you doing here with..."

"I think there's someone at the door," he tells Jongho, who snorts and rolls his eyes. 

"No shit, that's why the doorbell rang, hyung—" 

"No but I just heard Wooyoung say—" there's a sound of a heavy wooden door slamming shut, and they all look up. Wooyoung is conversing rapidly with a tallish, dark figure at the door, who is accompanied by a smaller person... that plaid jacket looks familiar. 

"Yeosang-ah, who's that?" Wooyoung vanishes in a small puff of smoke from the entrance, leaving the other two people to make their way up to the main house. They all stop and watch as the two figures slowly make their way across the courtyard now, the taller, unfamiliar person seems to be steering the smaller one along, supporting him almost. Once or twice the smaller one stumbles, but the other catches him deftly, slowing down, before continuing.

"Seonghwa hyung?" they all turn to Yeosang, who's now on his feet, staring at the two figures making their way to them. Yunho looks, while Mingi asks, "Who's Seonghwa? Isn't he your older brother...?" 

At that moment, Yunho rises to his feet so fast, he nearly knocks over the bongos beside him, "Hongjoong hyung?"

"What?" Mingi asks as Jongho stands and looks too, as the figures walk up the stairs to them, "What's Hongjoong hyung doing here?" 

The surprise in Mingi's voice mirrors the exact feeling that settles on San. The two people are close enough now that he can see that Yunho is right, that _is_ Hongjoong, accompanied by Yeosang's older brother, still bundled in his plaid jacket that they'd seen him in before they left for Wooyoung's. He doesn't look any different, and there doesn't seem to be anything wrong with his legs, but as they make their way slowly up the stone steps, he trips over air again, and would have fallen if Seonghwa hadn't had a tight hold on his arm. 

"Yunho, could you—" 

Yunho was already jogging towards the pair before San even finishes his sentence. They watch as Hongjoong accepts a piggyback ride from Yunho and the trio make it to the pavilion. Once they are near enough, it's like someone had pulled the plug on a barrage of anxious questions. 

"Hyung, what's wrong?" 

"Are you hurt?" 

"How did you get here? Why are you with Yeosang's hyung?" 

"I'm fine," Hongjoong's hoarse, tired tone shuts a momentary lid on their questions, "Just need a nap." 

"A nap? But—"

"What did you do to him?" San glances over to see Jongho rounding up on Seonghwa, hackles raised. But the older hunter barely flinches, holding out a steady hand instead to stop Jongho. 

"I didn't do anything. We were portaling here when he said he felt woozy." 

"Nothing to do with him. Back off, Jjong." mutters Hongjoong, eyes already slipping close. He does look more wrecked than usual, but San doesn't remember him appearing so exhausted when they left him earlier. Did something happen?

"Hyung, I have the items. I think." Wooyoung is back, bearing a small woven basket laden with jars and packets of things, "Yunho, put him down, I want to take a look at his hand again." 

"His hand? What's wrong with his hand?" Mingi asks worriedly as they gather around. Yunho sets their hyung down on the edge of the patio, and sits next to him as he yawns sleepily and rests his head on the drummer's shoulder. 

The warlock tugs the glove off Hongjoong's left hand, and at first it doesn't look like there's anything, there's a little grime smudged along the side of his palm. Then Wooyoung gingerly turns the appendage over and Hongjoong makes a muted, hissing sound at the back of his throat. And San immediately realises what's wrong.

"What the hell happened to your hand?!" streaks of gray and mossy green spiderweb across majority of his palm, stretching down past his wrist. 

"Have you tried an iratze for this?" 

Hongjoong nods slowly, "And antiseptic. And some painkillers, but it stopped working this morning," 

"What is antiseptic?" Asks Wooyoung, looking to San. 

"Human anti-bacterial ointment. Works for abrasions and stuff. Hyung, where did you get this? Why didn't you tell us about it?" 

"Didn't really want to worry anybody. Thought it would go away..." Hongjoong sounds faint, like he's on the verge of dozing off. Mingi reaches over and taps him urgently, on the face. 

"No sleeping! Stay awake." 

"Wait, Wooyoung-sshi, let me see," the warlock shuffles aside to let Jongho stoop and peer at the injury, his intelligent eyes following the damaged veins.

"Here. And here. Those scratch marks. I think he got these from the Yeongno." 

"The tail. The spikes on the tail. Hyung cut his hands on them, remember?" Yunho says. San recalls seeing Hongjoong's hands bleeding after their fight with the creature, but he'd put a healing rune for the cuts on his neck and the wounds had closed by the time they were at supper. 

"Didn't those heal already?" 

"Clearly not." Wooyoung rummages around in his basket of materials and pulls out a small but sharp knife, "Research on Yeongno physiology is limited, but I will look into it later. Meanwhile, I will need to reopen the wounds to apply the medication, because it seems the venom has been sealed into his skin. Is that ok, Hongjoong-sshi?" 

"Sure, bite me." San growls at the nonchalance in Hongjoong's voice, and when his older brother meets his gaze, he glares back. They're going to have a talk about this. 

"Ok, on the count of three, one, two, three—" The blood that flows out of the new gashes that Wooyoung makes is a deep, rusty brown, very unlike the usual red of normal blood. Wooyoung gets Yeosang to hold a rag under the dripping hand as he uncaps a jar of pale yellow powder. He tips some into a small mortar while he takes some leaves and slices of ginger from the basket and starts chewing on them.

They watch with bated breaths as their friend spits the chewed leaves back out into the bowl and adds a handful of knobbly, short stalks and shrivelled buds* from another paper packet, before he passes it to Seonghwa to grind the mixture together. 

"Kiddos," Hongjoong says suddenly, his usually bright eyes dull and hazy with exhaustion as they sweep over the worried faces of his family members, "I'm not dying. Calm down." 

"Says you. Asshole." retorts Jongho. Hongjoong clicks his tongue at the reproach in their youngest's voice, but he doesn't say anything else. 

"Will this get the venom out?" Mingi asks, watching as Wooyoung takes the bowl back from Seonghwa and starts packing the freshly-made poultice onto the weeping wounds. 

"This is my mother's cure-all for demon venom, and it's quite strong. But we've never had to deal with Yeongno venom before. It should start working in about half an hour or so... If it doesn't, I'll need to call her in. She won't like that but if Hongjoong-sshi wants to keep his hand..."

"I treated you to waffles and ice cream that day," mumbles Hongjoong, "just hyung will do." 

Wooyoung rolls his eyes, but he looks relieved that Hongjoong is still coherent. San is similarly comforted, but as Wooyoung starts wrapping up his brother's hand, he notices that the older boy has already dropped off. 

"He's out." San reaches over to tap Hongjoong's face, but the young man is down for the count, "Is it okay for him to sleep?"

"I don't know. If the venom is causing it, then it may be best if he stayed awake—" 

"It's not the venom." Seonghwa finally speaks up. They all look at him, which makes him clear his throat, "he told me why when we were on our way here. I'm not sure if I can tell you." 

"Why not? He's our brother," snaps Jongho. Yunho nudges Mingi, and the taller boy puts a calming hand on Jongho's shoulder, turning to Seonghwa. Seonghwa glances up and down, as if trying to see if Mingi would be likely to attack him for not telling them.

"Did hyung tell you to not tell us about it?" 

"No, but he didn't give me permission to talk about it either." Mingi takes a second to ponder what Seonghwa said, looking the other over, then sighs, turning back to them. 

"He's right. Anyway, I'd rather hear it come from Hongjoong hyung's mouth anyway." 

"Mingi hyung, you've got to be shittin' me—" San shoots his younger brother a look that Hongjoong would give when they started to cross lines in public. Jongho catches the hint immediately, and purses his lips shut. But his eyes still burn. 

"Then what should we do, should we go home now? Bring hyung home." San asks. Yunho glances at his watch. 

"It is quite late, we should get going—" 

"Actually," Wooyoung interjects at that moment, I think it may be best that you guys stay. I want to watch hyung for the night, see if the medication helps. My mother won't be back until the end of the weekend; they're having their biannual Council conference this week, so we have more than enough space for you guys."

Seonghwa glances sharply over at his friend. He hids the surprise in his face well, but San sees it before it vanishes behind a blank expression of careful stoicism. Yeosang looks apprehensive as well, so San sends him a reassuring smile as Yunho speaks up. 

"Are you sure your mother won't mind? Having a bunch of strangers in the house."

"I will inform her, and deal with her if she asks. Besides, you are the party that sold her the bulk of harvested scales from your hunt. I'm sure she will be more than pleased to return the favour."

Yeosang is slowly nodding already, affirming his friend's decision. 

"Wooyoung's mom is quite an easy-going lady to most people, except Wooyoung because he's always getting into all sorts of trouble. I will vouch for him, we can send her a message after we get everyone settled?" 

"I'll send the message with Wooyoung. I need to pass along an inquiry to our father too." Seonghwa says

Wooyoung stands, gathering his basket of materials to his chest. 

"Yeosang, could you show them where the guest rooms are? And the blankets and pillows. And anything else they need. Just make yourselves at home and don't worry. We're all friends here, right?"

Mingi responds positively, and despite the hard set of Jongho's mouth, he relaxes slightly and nods too. Wooyoung meets San's eye and gives him a gentle, warm smile.

"See you in a bit, then."

"See you." the warlock and older hunter goes to the main house and disappears through a door that had been closed, into a room just off the side of the patio. He sees a traditional, low wood table and shelves upon shelves of books, before the door slides close and the light inside goes on. Looks like a study of some sort. 

"Well," Yeosang claps his hand together, startling them, "Let me show you around." 

"I guess we're having a sleepover then, " remarks Yunho as he stands, with their sleeping hyung on his back. Yeosang considers the words, and then smiles quite suddenly, a warm and gentle thing. 

"Yeah, I guess we are." San's wariness ebbs. He doesn't know enough about Seonghwa to say anything, but he knows that Yeosang and Wooyoung are as honest and genuine as people come. San's judgement of people is usually never wrong. 

Maybe this isn't such a bad idea, after all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> * Dowse = to locate something (usually water to determine where a well should be dug and other precious items) using non-scientific means. In (invented) Warlock jargon, it means to locate a person or an energy. This was previously mentioned in Chapter 3 (see Seonghwa's convo with Lisa). 
> 
> * Hanok 한옥 = literally translates to Korean House, and it's used to refer to traditional Joseon-style houses seen in Korea. but I've envisioned Wooyoung's house being just _huge_. Refer to the [bamboo forest and hanok](https://en.acon3d.com/goods/goods_view.php?goodsNo=1000001790) in this link.  
> * Ingredients used in Wooyoung's mother's demon venom remedy = ginseng (powder), mugwort/wormwood leaves, ginger (slices), cloves (stalks), chinese ash pepper (buds). I DO NOT PRACTICE TRADITIONAL MEDICINE or any sort of medicine, but as an East Asian (I am an East Asian surprise surprise) I do have some crude knowledge of medicinal herbs. Ginseng is widely seen and used as a cure-all, wormwood for infections and to stimulate sweating, ginger is widely used as a cleansing agent of sorts, and cloves and the pepper (which ie not ACTUALLY a form of pepper because do not put pepper on injuries children) as fast-acting numbing agents. Idk if this combination works BUT AGAIN. THIS IS FICTIONAL. FICTIONAL. no one touch my spice mix thanks. 
> 
> But if you think the poultice sounds tasty, let me just say... You ain't alone. I kinda wanna put it in soup.
> 
> If you don't already know, this story is very stubbornly set in modern day Seoul, which I lived in for a very brief period of time, and have been to multiple times since I was??? a teen, and so many of the details are quite true to reality. If it isn't I would researched as much as I could, even google maps-ing some locations i am nothing if not COMMITTED and i need a HOLIDAY IN KOREA like yesterday.
> 
> Edit: so many spelling mistakes WHY
> 
> Edit: was listening to the song for next week's chapter and realised I made a terminological error — mixed up poison with with venom... My favourite book on natural venoms QUAKINg (no one taught me the difference between those words until the book)


	7. Do I Wanna Know?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Secrets aren't meant to be kept.
> 
> *WARNING spoilers for actual shadowhunter series 
> 
> **Some guiding information:**  
>  PARK Seonghwa - Nephilim, Shadowhunter, member of the Clave, junior member of the Council. PARABATAI: Yeosang [Weapon of Choice: knives] 
> 
> KIM Hongjoong - Nephilim (?), Keyboardist, Vocals, Songwriter, Producer, etc, older foster brother to the CHOIs. PARABATAI: San [WoC: music, wires] 
> 
> JEONG Yunho - Werewolf, Vocals, Drummer/Percussionist. [WoC: teeth, claws, and his irresistable charm] 
> 
> KANG Yeosang - Seelie Hybrid, Shadowhunter, member of the Clave. PARABATAI: Seonghwa [WoC: crossbow] 
> 
> CHOI San - Seelie Hybrid, Lead Guitarist, Vocals, Younger foster brother of Hongjoong and older -half-brother of Jongho. PARABATAI: Hongjoong [WoC: katana] 
> 
> SONG Mingi - Human, Bassist, Songwriter, Producer, your friendly neighbourhood cutie.
> 
> JUNG Wooyoung - Warlock, member of the Clave, Apprentice to Head Warlock of Seoul. Is hosting an extended sleepover experience, much to his mother's dismay. 
> 
> CHOI Jongho - Nephilim, Lead vocalist, Rhythm Guitarist, Drummer/Percussionist, Younger foster brother of Hongjoong and younger half-brother of San [WoC: sais]

When he opens his eyes, the first thing that he thinks is _This does not look like our ceiling._

The second thing he thinks is _What the hell sitting on my hand_.

Hongjoong turns his head to look, and surprisingly, there is nothing anywhere near his left hand. Also, this is not their home. He's in what looks like a room in a... hanok, if the seokkarae* overhead was real. It looks real. He inhales and gets a lungful of the warm, comforting scent of warm wood. Huh. Strange. 

He sits slowly, patting the unfamiliar futon he's sleeping on, and then the blanket that has been thrown over him. When Hongjoong raises his hand to get his fringe out of his eyes, he is met immediately with what he thinks is his left hand, except it's wrapped in so many layers of bandages that it makes him look like he's wearing some sort of makeshift oven mitt.

What the hell. 

He shakes his hand, but stops when he gets a sharp burn from the movement. The bandages stay on. It has a scribble on it that read, in uneven handwriting, " _do not remove - ask Wooyoung_ ". Well. 

He's still in the clothes he'd gone out in on Thursday, the t-shirt and work slacks, and he can see his jacket is hanging on a coat stand beside the screen doors of the room. There are other mismatched futons laid out around him, one or two of them neatly made, but the rest in a mess, with the covers in bunches and several pillows haphazardly stacked like a tower, like some sort of strange aftermath of a sleepover. But there's no one in sight. Where is he? Where's everyone? 

Hongjoong gets to his feet, the unsteadiness in his body expected, since he has no clue how long he's slept for this time around. He hadn't expected _INCEPTION_ to take as much out of him as it did— _Veritas_ has never really come around to hit him like that before — but it is what it is. He spots a mirror on a set of cabinets on his way out and gives himself a once-over; the rune he'd carved under his collarbone is a wispy web of lines now, barely visible in the low light. It had better work. He needs it to work. 

A distant, muffled shout from past the screen doors of the room makes him look up, and immediately he stiffens. He's definitely not alone here, and the laughter doesn't sound familiar. 

Mindful of the bandaging of his hand, he pulls the jacket over his shoulders, cradling his wrapped limb to his chest. The act sparks a memory, he was at the industrial yard with Seonghwa, the Clave boy, and this hand, the one that had steadily been getting more painful since their encounter with the monster days ago. After that... 

The corridor outside is empty. He wanders down, turning when he meets a corner. The size of the house astounds him, and he doesn't want to get lost, so he zeros in on the laughter and tries to go towards it. A few more turns and he sees a large wooden door which should be the exit, or entrance. And the sight the door opens to is even more confusing. 

"Serve!" San calls from the opposite end of the sandy courtyard as he throws the ball into the air, and volleys it over the low net to Wooyoung, who is ready on the other side. It gets passed back to Yunho, who seems to be on San's team, and their friend bounces it right back. Yeosang receives the shot, deftly knocking it over the net to Jongho. 

"I got it!" Mingi runs forward to anticipate Jongho's return shot, but his baby brother does what he always does when he gets a high ball, and he spikes the ball so strongly that the rebound sounds like a small explosion, a pistol discharging. He flinches involuntarily at the sound, and doesn't realise that the ball is shooting straight towards him, until San shrieks, alarmed, "Hyung! Watch out!" 

Hongjoong shuts his eyes and recoils, anticipating the impact, but nothing comes. There is shocked silence as when he opens his eyes and he realises there's a hand in front of his face, and it has caught the ball. Who—

"Holy crap, Seonghwa hyung." Seonghwa, the guy who had tailed him to his meeting is standing next to him, having caught football with his hand. The man looks at him from the side of his eye, and a strange tingle runs down his spine. 

"Nice save!" Wooyoung calls excitedly, while Hongjoong sees Mingi punch Jongho chidingly over the net, in the shoulder, for _almost killing hyung, you idiot_.

"Good morning, Kim Hongjoong-sshi," Seonghwa says calmly, as if he hasn't just saved Hongjoong's face from becoming two dimensional, "Did you rest well?" 

"Seonghwa-sshi—"

"You're finally awake!" cheers Wooyoung, who is already making his way up to the platform that he and Seonghwa were standing on, "Good morning, hyung!" 

His greeting is echoed by the others, and Mingi, who's the next closest to this side of the court, comes sprinting and jumping up to meet him. He pulls Hongjoong into a surprisingly gentle embrace, clearly mindful of his injured hand. 

"Morning, hyung! I've missed you!" 

"Good morning, Mingi-yah, and everyone." while Mingi has him wrapped in a hug, Wooyoung goes over to his side and gingerly takes his bandaged hand. 

"Oh good. The heating spell has faded. We should change the wrapping."

"Let's do it later, Wooyoung-ah. After the meal." Seonghwa says. The ball is still gripped in his hand. 

"Where are we? What time — what day is it?" he had looked for his phone in his pockets, on the sheets, but he hadn't seen it anywhere. 

"It's Saturday now." the taller hunter supplies as he flings the ball back onto the court, letting it hit the net, "You've been dead to the world since Wednesday night." 

"Oh." he tries to hide the shock he feels from how long he'd slept. Two whole days, and then some? Jesus. Maybe _INCEPTION_ is a lot more powerful than he thought. 

"Is breakfast ready?" he hears Yeosang ask Seonghwa as he embraces each of his boys. Yunho looks as happy and bubbly as ever, while there's a sharp glint of concern in San's gentle eyes, and Jongho straight out latches himself to his good arm and doesn't want to let go. 

"Sorry about the trouble I caused," he says to them. His parabatai purses his lips, his brows knitting. 

"You better have a darn good explanation. When we said we wanted you to rest more, we didn't mean exhaust yourself to the point of collapse," he takes San's admonishment contritely. Seonghwa starts walking back indoors, and they follow automatically. From what he can gather from the smalltalk that bubbles up as they walk, it seems that it has become quite the routine, to eat the morning meal together. 

The dining table is set and ready, and Hongjoong is pressed down onto the floor cushion between Yunho and Seonghwa. The others find their places around the table, and San sits right across from him; he can sense the interrogation looming. 

"Thank you for the meal, Seonghwa hyung." Yunho says brightly, and everyone echoes his sentiments before digging in. As Hongjoong lifts his spoon, Jongho asks, quietly, "So... Are you going to tell us what happened, hyung?" 

Everyone freezes instantly, and Hongjoong looks around. They are all staring at him with rapt attention, apart from Seonghwa, who is picking out some kimchi and placing it on Wooyoung and Yeosang's rice.

"I..." he glances to Seonghwa on his left, who is mutely scooping a bowl of soup for himself. The man meets his gaze, and clears his throat. 

"I haven't told them anything. Wasn't sure if you wanted me to tell." 

He knows he should be thankful to Seonghwa for helping him keep his secret, but a part of him is sour with irritation. Had he known that Seonghwa was going to go to Wooyoung's house to let him get his hand fixed, he would not have agreed to go along. He'd known his siblings were with the new friends they'd made. This wasn't how he wanted them to find out. 

Taking a deep breath, he looks around at the eyes fixed upon him. Guess it's time to face the music. 

"What do you want to know?" 

"What happened on Wednesday night? Where were you?" 

"Why was Seonghwa hyung with you?" 

"Why didn't you say anything about your hand? Do you know you could've lost it, if Wooyoung hadn't managed to get the venom out in time?" 

"Ok, one by one. Please eat while I explain, I don't want Seonghwa-sshi's cooking to go to waste." 

The boys obediently pick up their utensils as he continues, "San, you know that I've been working to get your father's debt cleared. The rest of you know as well. I wanted us to stop running, what with Yunho going back to college, Jongho going back to high school."

He pauses and looks at Wooyoung, Yeosang, and Seonghwa, who don't look surprised. 

"San's father, your adopted father?" Yeosang provides, reaching out to take a piece of chicken and place it on San's bowl, "We've had a few days together, Yunho and San caught us up on your family situation." 

"Right. I call him Uncle, he's technically my foster father. He was best friends with my mother and he took me in when she died." a hard lump rises in his throat when he says this, but he swallows quickly past it, "the people that lent your dad money were part of a gang. Humans. They took your dad in and gave him work when he ran away from the Clave."

He pauses as Yunho places a bowl of soup in front of him. His younger brothers watch him as he takes a sip, before continuing, "He wanted to send you guys to study in Japan and live with San's family, far, far away from the scrutiny of the Clave. He was paranoid. Convinced that they were always watching. He thought they were the reason that my mother was killed, so naturally, he wanted to protect you two. So he borrowed a ton of money from them, and sent you off to study in Japan. 

After he died, it fell upon my head to take care of the debts. They've been on our tail, but we managed to raise enough money to pay the original sum off. But on Wednesday, when I handed it in, they told me that the loan had racked up an obscene amount of interest. I know that illegal moneylenders do this, but I didn't think they would do that to your father, especially since he used to be one of them. I should've known better." he adds bitterly. 

San swallows his mouthful of rice, eyes piercing, "are they the reason Dad died? Because they made him work so much." 

A chill runs down his spine. San's guess is uncomfortably close. He tries to ignore the feeling of Seonghwa's eyes on him as he nods, lying, "Your father was... pressured to pay them back. I wanted us to get out before they got on our backs on it, and when they pulled that curveball on me, it was the last straw. So I decided to resolve it the only way I knew how."

"Your music." it's the first thing that Mingi'd said since their greeting at the volleyball court. The boy looks uncharacteristically subdued. 

"My music. I've... I've not been completely honest with you guys about how our music works."

Jongho pauses in the middle of picking up a piece of meat, "Do you mean _Veritas_? Is this why it doesn't work when San-hyung and I do it?" 

"Yes. You've probably anticipated this," he sets down his spoon and reaches for the collar of his shirt, pulling it low enough for them to see the thin scars left by the symbols he'd been carving under his clavicle, on the left breast, "for the song to work, I have to prime it. Using runes." 

The grim, almost expectant silence that follows makes him want to wince. His boys weren't dumb... in hindsight, it has been kind of naïve of him to assume they wouldn't suspect anything. 

"Which ones?" Seonghwa asks softly, making everyone turn to him, "Which runes do you use?" 

Hongjoong shakes his head, letting go of his shirt, "They aren't your standard runes. They aren't in the Gray Book. I designed them myself." 

Shocked expressions washes over all their faces, including Seonghwa's. 

"You can make new runes." Yeosang says softly, his usually kind eyes now wide and piercing, "you're a Runemaker."

"Runemaker. Why does that sound familiar?" Wooyoung asks. 

"That's because there's only been a few such hunters in Clave history, " murmurs Seonghwa, and Hongjoong glances to him, "Some shadowhunters are blessed by angels with specific, extraordinary angelic gifts. Jonathan Shadowhunter, the first hunter, was able to communicate with creatures that do not possess language. He could speak to animals, magical creatures, even demons. There have been documented Runemakers in the early days of Shadowhunters, like David the Silent, and they were the creators of the runes we use today."

"I remember reading about this in one of Dad's history books," San says, "But didn't the trait die out in the 3rd or 4th century or something?" 

Seonghwa nods, "there have been one or two Shadowhunters since then that were born with angelic gifts, but none with Runemaking. The closest I can think of is Elder Clary Fairchild, who resides in America, but her ability is passive, she cannot intentionally construct new runes." 

He watches as his family digests this information with a twinge of guilt. Mingi looks confused and Jongho is scowling as he tries to wrap his mind around the gravity of his hyung's secret. Hongjoong wishes he could tell them more, but with his limited resources, and with his guardians being defactors, he had no idea the extent or reason for his abilities. 

"I wrote a new song recently. That was the one I used on Wednesday night." 

"Not Veritas?" San asks, looking concerned, "What is it for?" 

"It's called _INCEPTION_. It's meant to evoke a deep sleep, and plant an idea in the minds of those who hear it. Well, at least humans, anyway. The idea I wanted to plant was for them to forget that they ever knew your father, or that he ever owed them anything. I wanted them to forget our family, entirely."

"And it worked?" Mingi asks, mouth gaping open slightly, "you made them forget?" 

"How did you know that it would work? How do you know it wouldn't erase their memories entirely?" 

The spoonful of rice he's taken suddenly feels like sand. He swallows it, trying not to look uncomfortable, "I've tested it. I had to test it like _Veritas_ , except this time, I tried it with animals." 

Suddenly San claps his hands together, making them all jump, "Yuyu!" 

"Yuyu? The stray dog that lives in our neighbourhood?" asks Yunho, while Jongho and Mingi look perplexed. 

"There's a stray dog that lives in our neighbourhood?" 

"Yeah, hyung and I have been feeding him some of our leftovers for the past two months or so, and he loved us. Always came up to me when he saw me and he liked to lick Hongjoong hyung's face. But then just a few days ago, I tried to pet him and he barked at me and ran away with his tail between his legs, like he was scared of me," his younger brother looks at him, "you made Yuyu forget us?" 

He nods, "I whistled him the final version last week. He hasn't recalled us since then. There's a milder version, I used it on a cat that always comes look for me for food on my delivery rounds. He forgot my scent, but I think he remembers what I look like and where I park so when I came back the next day, he was hanging around my usual parking spot. I tried that version on the ahjumma who runs the vegetable store."

Yunho's mouth forms the shape of an O, "That's why she keeps calling you Strawberry boy." 

"Yeah."

"Hyung, that's so dangerous. What if it didn't work?" Jongho says, looking serious, "you used INCEPTION on people?" 

He nods, "Your father's debtors. My phone, do you guys have it?" 

"Yes. I charged it for you, here." San pulls it out and passes it across the table. He motions for them to continue eating while he turns the device on and waits. Minutes pass, and apart from a kakao from his supervisor, asking when he's going to return from his sick leave, his message inbox and call log is miraculously clear for the first time in what feels like years. He turns it over to his brothers and friends, showing them the lack of activity since he's evoked the song on Wednesday.

"They used to flood me with calls daily. Harrassing us," he leaves out the part about the death threats. That was what happened to Uncle before he...

Shaking the thoughts away, Hongjoong points out the bunches of red, missed calls he's received over the week, and the sudden lapse since Wednesday. 

"Maybe the signal is just really bad here? The house is magical, after all." Jongho suggests, but immediately Wooyoung shakes his head.

"I adjusted the wards when I got my phone. Cellphone signals pass through just fine, that's how I've been able to message San." 

"So... it worked," concludes Mingi, tentatively. Yunho takes the phone, then hesitates, scrolling back through the messages that he's been sent. He pauses at a particularly vulgar one. 

"Why didn't you tell us they were giving you so much trouble, hyung? We could have done something." 

He reaches over with his right hand and takes the phone back.

"I didn't want you to—" 

"Let me guess, you didn't want us to worry." San's tone makes him look up. The boy's lips are pressed into a tight line, "Like you didn't want us to worry about your hand? Because you thought it would just go away?" 

The last sentence gives him an immediate sense of déjà vu. Ah. He's said that before? He's probably said that before. 

"So the exhaustion, it was caused by using the rune with the music?" he nods at Mingi's question; he can see the gears turning in their heads.

"When you use the music rune, it drains you, right? Does _Veritas_ affect you this way as well?" he turns to the other hunter. Wooyoung and Yeosang are still slowly picking at their food, but Seonghwa is mostly done with his meal. 

"From my experience, it depends. _Veritas_ isn't supposed to last past 24 hours, but I needed _INCEPTION_ to be permanent. I still don't know if it will hold. That's why I did it with the dog first. If it wears off..." 

"Yuyu will start approaching us again," finishes San as it dawns upon him. He nods slowly. 

"Then I will need to meet them again." 

"No." Jongho's sharp interjection almost makes him jump. The youngest is sitting ramrod straight, gripping his spoon so tightly that it looks like he was going to bend it. 

"Jongho-ah," San starts in a would-be-calm voice, but his brother shuts him off with a glare. 

"San hyung, don't even try to defend him. We've discussed this before, all of us talked about this before, remember? We said, if it starts to get too much for us, even if it's just one of us, we stop. You agreed too, hyung." the way Jongho spits out the last honorific makes it sound like its made of acid.

Guilt rushes into his gut. He'd anticipated this. A part of him understands Jongho's frustration, but another part of him... to let go of this ability is to lose his music. His music is his power. 

Surprisingly, its not San that speaks up for him, but Yeosang. 

"I don't think that's a good idea." 

Wooyoung looks surprised at the interruption as well, as does San. 

"Why not?" 

"It's his weapon of choice." Seonghwa.

"...Can't he just change his weapon then? Hyung, you still have your wires, don't you?" asks Mingi, his brows furrowed in worry. Hongjoong clears his throat. 

"It's...not the same." 

Seonghwa is nodding, as well, "Hongjoong-sshi is right. It's not that simple. For a shadowhunter, having a weapon of choice almost as powerful as having a parabatai. To strip them of that, the effects can be equally as devastating. And what more if its an angelic gift." 

The silence that follows is not a comfortable one. From the furious set of Jongho's jaw, to how Yunho is looking from Yeosang, to Seonghwa, to Hongjoong, clearly conflicted, he suddenly feels at a loss. He doesn't know what to do. 

"But it... the music..." San falters, meeting Hongjoong's gaze. He can read his parabatai's expression precisely. 

_It hurts you._

He understands the concern. But he knows that San understands the weight of what Jongho is suggesting as well. The music is a literal part of his entire existence as a hunter. It's what makes him... him. 

"I... I want to be able to keep my music. I need to be able to continue using my runes. But—" he speaks a little louder, over the noises that his declaration elicits from his family, "but, I know that it has it consequences. I understand the concern, I do."

"So what are we supposed to do then, hyung? Do you want us to just stand by and watch as you—" Yunho hesitates, unsure if he should continue. He doesn't think he's ever seen his younger friend this solemn in a long time. His heart feels heavy in his chest. Hongjoong takes a deep breath, taking in the pairs of eyes staring back at him. 

"I can't tell you what to do," he starts slowly, "but the only thing I can promise is that I will tell you guys if I plan to use the runes or the songs, and I will try my best to explain why I need to use them, if we need to use them. I promise." 

"How do we know we can trust you to tell us this?" Jongho huffs. 

"You can't. But I promise you that I will need to use them, and I will continue to use them, and I will be as honest as I can with you about it."

He can see them trying to process this, so he takes this chance to turn to Wooyoung and Yeosang, and he can feel Seonghwa's eyes on him, "I am promising with witnesses present. I know we've only just met, but—" 

"I get it." Wooyoung interrupts. He stops. The young warlock looks at Hongjoong, then at the rest of his new friends, around the table, "We may not know each other that well yet, but I like to think that we will slowly get there. I will help San, Jongho, Yunho, and Mingi hold you to that promise."

"Besides, that's what friends are for, right?" Yeosang offers, quietly. At his words the tense atmosphere around the table eases slightly.

He sees San and Yunho nodding to Yeosang's statement, and the protective instinct inside of him stays dormant. He likes to think he's a good judge of people and from what he's seen so far... these aren't bad people. 

Mingi exhales minutely as well, eyes turning back to his bowl of rice as if it could give him an answer. Jongho absorbs the words, and it softens the glare that he is trying to level at Hongjoong. Their eyes meet, and he knows Jongho can see the sincerity in them. The boy opens his mouth, then closes it, before finally nodding. 

"Thank you," he speaks for all of them, "I know this is not an easy thing to deal with. Three of you know more about shadowhunters than the five of us combined, so I will trust you to point out things that we may not know. As friends." 

"Deal." Wooyoung's grin is a welcome change, after the sullen discussion that had taken place. As the rest slowly continue finishing up their meal, Hongjoong takes up a piece of chicken, and places it in Seonghwa's empty bowl. The man looks at him quizzically. 

"There's one thing I do not quite understand yet, however." 

"Hmm?" Seonghwa lifts up his chopsticks to pick up the piece. 

"Why was Seonghwa-sshi following me?" 

The quiet chatter that had picked back up with the meal stops abruptly. Seonghwa turns and holds his stare, his expression seemingly inscrutable. But Hongjoong reads people well— he is thinking if this is the best time, and whether or not he should tell the truth. 

He lets Seonghwa be, for a beat, as he turns back to the table, and takes another piece of chicken, bringing it to his plate. 

"I actually saw you outside our apartment block, when I was coming down the stairs after grabbing Yunho's hat. I thought you were just passing by, but after I saw you again while I was waiting for a cab, I figured it wasn't a coincidence after all," he explains evenly, recalling the glimpses he had caught of a tall, dark-haired figure, entirely shrouded in shadows with the exception of his glittering, perceptive eyes. He'd wondered if he should have confronted him then, maybe it would have been different. But at the same time, a part of him readily admits that he was scared to go to the meeting alone. With the impairment of his left hand and his interactions with the gang over the phone, it had been only natural. Hongjoong'd figured that if the song and dance didn't work, some backup would have been helpful. 

"So?" he probes again when there doesn't seem to be anything forthcoming. Seonghwa is still holding onto the piece that Hongjoong has given him, but he hasn't taken a bite. 

"You can't have been just in the area. Not in the industrial complex, at least." 

"... I wanted to speak with you." 

"Oh?" he tilts his head Seonghwa takes a bite of the chicken, before setting it down, "You wanted to talk to me... About?" 

"I had a proposition to make. But shall we finish breakfast first?" 

The sharp avoidance of the topic is not lost on him. He feels his brow go up and disappear into his messy fringe, "Could I at least know the crux of this proposal?" 

Another pause, another bite of chicken, and the piece is gone. Everyone is so quiet, you could hear a pin drop. 

Finally Seonghwa exhales shortly, and sweeps the table only to see six pairs of eyes staring inquisitively back. He then turns to Hongjoong, fixing him with a pair of intense eyes. A strange shade of obisidian, like someone drew them directly out of the mythical River Styx. They are interesting, so open, yet so wary at the same time. Hongjoong finds himself wondering if he could ever read the others emotions accurately. 

At last, the other hunter speaks, but what he says is just about the last thing that any of them expected. 

"I wanted to ask if all of you would be willing to join the Clave."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Seokkarae 서까래 = the name of the [rafters](http://youlhwadang.co.kr/en/ceilings-of-hanok-the-traditional-korean-house/?ckattempt=1)/[ceiling beams](https://ssarbkimbo12.github.io/allabouthanok__/) beams primarily seen on traditional Hanoks (Korean houses that were popularised in the Joseon era, used primarily to house nobles and officials). For more information, see the notes of Chapter 6 
> 
> *on the fair chance no one reads my character descriptions at the start, here are the parabatai pairings:
> 
> Hongjoong × San  
> Seonghwa × Yeosang
> 
> Jongho is unbonded, but he is protected (very fiercely) by the rest. Also he's very stronk babie do not test him.
> 
> *Belated note: Since all 8 boys are together now, the next chapter (Chapter 8) will remain in the same setting. Do I want to bring in other characters? Good question. Also, I picture the whole eating + the next chapter in that room that ATEEZ played games in during ATEEZ Wanted. I just really like Hanoks and their wood floors no one touch me


	8. Mr. Brightside

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Apologies for the late update! 
> 
> **Some guiding information:**  
>  Seonghwa - Nephilim, Shadowhunter, member of the Clave, junior member of the Council. Adopted older brother of Yeosang. PARABATAI: Yeosang [Weapon of Choice: knives] 
> 
> Hongjoong - Nephilim (?), Keyboardist, Vocals, Songwriter, Producer, etc, older foster brother to the CHOIs. PARABATAI: San [WoC: music, wires] 
> 
> Yunho - Werewolf, Vocals, Drummer/Percussionist. [WoC: teeth, claws, and kindness] 
> 
> Yeosang - Seelie Hybrid, Shadowhunter, member of the Clave, adopted younger brother of Seonghwa. PARABATAI: Seonghwa [WoC: crossbow and his adorable smile] 
> 
> CHOI San - Seelie Hybrid, Lead Guitarist, Vocals, Younger foster brother of Hongjoong and older -half-brother of Jongho. PARABATAI: Hongjoong [WoC: katana] 
> 
> Mingi - Human, Bassist, Songwriter, Producer, a Good Boy.
> 
> Wooyoung - Warlock, member of the Clave, Apprentice to Head Warlock of Seoul. Loves kissing everyone.
> 
> Jongho - Nephilim, Lead vocalist, Rhythm Guitarist, Drummer/Percussionist, Younger foster brother of Hongjoong and younger half-brother of San [WoC: sais]

Whatever Mingi had been expecting Seonghwa to say, it was definitely not... that. 

Sure the man is quiet and keeps to himself, and in little time they've managed to spend together, Mingi has learnt that he is a little bit of a workaholic, and quite closed off to everyone but Wooyoung and Yeosang. He seems to care though, with how he will always come back to the house after his Institute duties, and always prepares and eats breakfast with them. At least that's what he's done, for the last two days. He seems nice enough, and Mingi feels comfortable around him.

The summary of the proposal that Seonghwa gives, much like the person himself, isn't very telling. They finish up the rest of the meal in confused silence, and the older man ends up shooing them out of the dining room after breakfast. It's a light autumn day, the man says, the weather is nice, if they want to talk, they should talk out in the courtyard. Maybe it's easier to talk about difficult things out in the daylight.

Wooyoung magicks the dishes to wash themselves in the water vat in the yard, and the rest of them sit around while Yeosang goes back in to gather materials from the study, under the instruction of Wooyoung. Honestly, Mingi usually doesn't like to stick around when they do re-dress Hongjoong's wounds, but he can't go somewhere else _and_ still participate in the conversation that is potentially about to happen.

Which would suck and be so uncool.

So no thanks.

He definitely wants to be here for this. A Clave minion trying to recruit three of the wildest, most unorthodox people he knows into an old folks home. The Clave sound like a bunch of dusty old people that quarrel daily about whether or not their children should be allowed to wear snapbacks or not. And they wanted to get with his wonderfully wild friends? He wants to see them try. 

Seonghwa takes the seat opposite Hongjoong, which puts him squarely between Mingi and Yeosang. It's been two days and Mingi is still trying to figure out why he sits so straight. Doesn't it hurt? Mingi mimics him and by the third minute of sitting all prim and proper, he's already tired of being a human. He is now convinced that Seonghwa has a metal pole running through his spine. 

"So, just to make sure I didn't hear you wrongly the first time round," Hongjoong says as Wooyoung pulls his hand onto his lap, "you want _who_ to join the Clave?" 

"Your... group. Specifically you." 

"And why?"

Seonghwa exhales, gazing into a distance. Dramatic. Mingi likes that.

"There has been a bit of trouble with some of our wards in some of the areas, as all of you know. We are having problems finding the source of it. That also means KOI running on full capacity, around the clock, and we really only have that many hunters available at one time."

"And how would I be able to help you with that? I can immobilise and manipulate demons and other demon-blooded beings, not spawn new hunters." 

San lets out a snort of laughter at this, and Jongho flicks him scoldingly at the back of his neck, but the youngest is trying not to smirk too. 

"Your truth-telling song, what was it called? Veri... verified... No—"

" _Veritas_ ," the rest of them say in unison, save for Hongjoong and Seonghwa. Surprisingly, Wooyoung and Yeosang joined the chorus too. When San glances quizzically at Wooyoung, the warlock shrugs. 

"Issa cool name. Has quite a ring to it." 

"It means Truth in latin." adds Yeosang, in his quiet way. 

"Yeah, I came up with it." says Mingi, and gets a huge grin from their new magical friend, as he glances up from snipping away the bindings round Hongjoong's hand. 

"Like I said, it's really cool." he can't help but beam at the affirmation. 

"Right, _Veritas_. So with that song, I am hoping that we may be able to apprehend some of the demons that are appearing. We can use the song to ask them how they are coming in. Which rift did they come through? Is there someone helping them?" 

Yunho's mouth forms an O-shape and Mingi is sure his own face looks as surprised too. That sounded like an interesting way to use _Veritas_. They'd never tried getting the demons to tell them anything more than their identity before, it was kind of just... unimportant. After all, they were a team of DemonBusters, as Yunho likes to call them, not DemonTherapists, or DemonBefrienders.

Twenty questions with something from the depths of hell would creep Mingi out anyway. It made him feel like the devil was near. 

While the rest of them look quite intrigued by the idea, Hongjoong remains stoic, his mouth a doubtful line on his face. 

"So you're leading an investigation into the influx of demons?" 

"That, and I've been part of a recruitment task force for about half a year now. Our hunters at the institute are dwindling in numbers. Most of us are pureblooded, to begin with, there aren't that many od us. For example, I'm an only child, and many of my colleagues and friends who are from full Nephilim families are only children too."

"Aren't you and Yeosang hyung brothers?" Jongho asks, raising a brow. 

"Sangie is adopted," Wooyoung volunteers. Mingi's eyes flit to Yeosang, who shrugs. 

"It's common knowledge. The Parks took me in when I was just three or four after my mother died. With my natural hair and eyes, I couldn't ever pass for Seonghwa hyung's biological brother. Not in a million years. Plus, I'm not as handsome as Seonghwa hyung or Father."

"That's not true!" protests San, indignant. Yeosang's cheeks and the tips of his ears start practically glowing. Yunho rolls his eyes at the comment and claps a hand over San's mouth. 

"Flirt later, idiot. So y'all have a shortage of hunters, and you're actively recruiting everyone? Including Halfies like Hongjoong hyung and Sannie?" 

Seonghwa nods seriously. Wooyoung lets out a derisive snort, and Mingi glances at him. 

"About time. This pureblooded rhetoric was so last millenia." Yeosang's lip twitches up into a small smile, whilst Seonghwa continues, clearly accustomed to Wooyoung's less-than-friendly remarks about the old people he works for. 

"We need more experienced hunters, and Father managed to persuade the Council Elders that we should tap into the large population of Outbred. It took a while for most to warm up to the idea, but its been sanctioned by the the Grand Council in Idris." 

Wooyoung makes a satisfied sound, but Mingi suspects this is more at the mostly healed wounds on Hongjoong's hand. He peers tentatively at his hyung's injury, and surprised at how much better it looks. Where two days ago, the appendage looked like it was an evil gray and green and, well, dead, now the flesh has regained a more healthy colour. The cuts made by Wooyoung are mostly healed now, a dark, scabby color and no longer crying black pus, like Yunho had described yesterday. Mingi is glad because this means he can hold Hongjoong's hand as he usually does, without the fear of Satan. Which should be great news for everyone. 

"So recruiting us is like... killing two birds with one stone?" San says, the gears in his head whirring. 

"Yes."

"Recruiting us. Including Mingi and Yunho?" Hongjoong tags on sharply. Mingi realises he hasn't heard him speak for quite a while. Their band leader is still clearly paying attention to the conversation, but his brows are pinched slightly together, like it does when he's in physical pain. The wound must still hurt, even if it looks better. 

Seonghwa looks uncomfortable, "They... can't join. They aren't counted." 

There's an growl from his left, and Mingi glances to see that Jongho is frowning. His hands are bunched in fists on his knees, and Mingi places a hand on his right hand, to calm him down. 

"Wait, but doesn't the Clave have non-nephilim members?" Wooyoung cuts in, wide-eyed. He holds up his hand to tick off the names of people he knows, "I'm a member, my mother is a member, and Aunt Yeeun* from the Northern Wolf Clan and Uncle Heejun*—" 

"Those are different. They are otherworlders who joined the Clave since their birth or turning, or are humans married to Clave members." 

"What? There's a rule like that?" Yeosang mutters, clearly confused. Knowing their friend, the boy probably has the entire rulebook memorised. 

Mingi catches Yunho's uncomfortable expression, and he sends him a resigned look. He knew that this would happen, to be very honest. Sure, Yunho fought alongside Hongjoong, San, and Jongho in his wolf form, and Mingi designed gadgets for all of them to use, and sometimes ran over the less intimidating demons with their family truck when he could, but deep down he'd always recognised that two of them aren't the same as the others. Of course, Jongho and San considered them as their closest friends and confidants, and Hongjoong looks over all of them like an older brother, and undoubtedly sees them all as a single unit — a family — but to outsiders who don't know them....

"Boys, calm down," they quieten when Hongjoong speaks up, quite suddenly, his voice ringing clearly over the protests that are being made by everyone except him and Yunho. There's a glint of something in Hongjoong's eye, but Mingi can't quite tell what it is. 

Seonghwa takes the lapse in noise to speak again, "So, Hongjoong-sshi, this is a formal invitation. Is it possible —" 

"For three of us to join the Clave, but not Yunho nor Mingi?" 

"Yes." 

Hongjoong glances down at where Wooyoung has finished cleaning his wound and is now wrapping things up. "I understand. Seonghwa-sshi, thank you for your offer. But I'm afraid we can't give you an answer at this point in time." 

"Hyung, so you're saying that you're considering leaving Yunho and Mingi behind?" San more or less shouts, but he's quickly silenced by a look from Hongjoong. 

"I need more time to discuss this with my family, and we will let you know our decision when we can." 

Seonghwa nods, "I would say take all the time you need, but it is quite an urgent matter. We've already recruited two or three groups of hunters, and some individual hunters. If you cannot accept, we will need to move on, or the demon population —"

"I understand perfectly." Hongjoong cuts the other off, "like I said, we need to think about it. But thank you for the consideration." 

Seonghwa looks torn at the lukewarm response he receives, but Mingi feels weirdly comforted. It was nice to belong somewhere, to someone. It was always nice to be called to serve a higher purpose, and yet to have step away from it for the people you care about... Mingi sees Yunho and knows he feels the same. For Mingi, he had nothing to begin with, but for Yunho, he left everything he knew behind for them. He walked away from clans and packs for them, and did so without hesitation. Even when it was the harder choice. 

He shakes himself out of his reverie as Hongjoong rises to his feet, taking his jacket with him. 

"Hyung?" 

"Seonghwa-sshi, and Wooyoung and Yeosang, thank you so much for looking after me — after us for the past few days. We are grateful for your help, genuinely." Hongjoong is nothing but polite, but there's a tone of finality in his voice. He's ready to go. Mingi thinks most of them are, "If it's not too much trouble, we would like to take our leave now. Mingi, I assume the truck is nearby?" 

"Yup." he jumps to his feet, the keys already jangling in his pocket. It's been a nice, chill couple of days, and he's had fun. Wooyoung looks a little crestfallen, but not angry in the slightest. He stands with them. As they hug out their goodbyes, Wooyoung smiles when San swears that this doesn't change anything — they will hang out again. Soon. 

The two oldest hyungs — there are two now — stand waiting, the small distance between them like an ocean. Mingi hears Seonghwa say something quiet, and Hongjoong offer a polite apology if he seemed a little short earlier, but he's just quite tired from everything that has happened since he'd woke up. 

"Could you... Would you please sincerely consider the Clave's offer? We could really use your help."

"We will have to talk about it." 

"Ah..."

"We will talk about it, I promise," MIngi glances over Yeosang's shoulder as he hugs him and sees the expression on his hyung's face. He is smiling, but he has that familiar look in his eyes, the look like he is carrying the weight a thousand worlds upon his back, but he can't say a word about it. Mingi's heart aches, just a little. 

"See you guys soon. We have a gig coming up tomorrow night, we need to rehearse anyway. Please come watch us perform, it would be so nice to see some familiar faces in the normie crowd." Yunho tells Yeosang, who nods with a small, shy grin on his lips. 

"I'll send you the e-tickets to the performance, you guys gotta come, okay?" San says, "We'll send a video show you how to use it, don't worry." 

Wooyoung gives San a big hug and a boisterous kiss on the cheek for his fierce determination. While San is embracing his new identity as a ripe tomato, Mingi complains about how San always gets the kisses and he gets nothing, so Wooyoung plants one on his cheek too, and accidentally gives Yeosang one when he lunges for Jongho and misses. 

They fall into easy laughter, which feels so good after such a heavy morning. Mingi is light again. 

On their way home in the truck, Mingi glances over to Hongjoong, who's looking out of the window pane as Jongho dozes on his shoulder, all tuckered out from the activities. He clears his throat at the pensive expression on Hongjoong's face. 

"Why don't you take a nap, Hongjoong hyung? The ride home is pretty long." 

Hongjoong's eyes go to him, and he reaches over carefully to pat Mingi's thigh with his healing hand. His mouth is smiling, but eyes are confused. 

"Thank you, Mingi-yah. Don't worry about me. Eyes on the road, okay?" 

"Okay." 

He looks away. 

It's only at the next traffic light junction that he takes the chance to glance back again, and when he looks back he sees that Hongjoong's eyes are closed, his face a little more relaxed, even though Mingi knows he's still thinking, he's not quite gone yet. But he's trying. 

For Mingi, it's enough. 

~

She leans against the stone wall of the alley, tapping her feet incessantly. There is an urge to reach into her pocket for her butterfly knives — she just needs something to occupy her hands with, something to make her feel less... jittery. But she's also standing in broad daylight. So she has to keep her hands in her pocket and hope that the other person will be here soon. 

Right on the dot, half past noon, there is a small pop behind her. Before she can turn, a figure wrapped in a coat far too thick for the light autumn weather brisks past her without sparing her a second glance. The furcoated man doesn't say a word, but she hurries to follow, falling in step beside her new companion easily easily. 

They turn down the crowded main street, walking together for a while, before the man pauses, turns into small coffeeshop. As they walk in through the door, a small bell tingles and the sunlight catches the hair of the man in the coat. It's a startling, almost neon red that reminds her strangely of greater demon blood, the kind that only come from the deepest depths of hell. 

"Do you want me to find a table, sunbaenim?" the man waves his hand towards the filled cafe, as if saying go ahead, I don't care, as she makes her way to the counter to order drinks. She notices immediately that both of them are drawing stares, her and her all-black leather and metal ensemble, combined with G-Dragon's bright hair and immense furcoat. Maybe she shouldn't have worn her work attire out, especially on such a busy, Sunday afternoon. 

She takes out her materials and is thumbing through the notebook when her senior sits down in the chair opposite her, clutching a cup of coffee in his hand, while he places a glass of water in front of her. She levels a quizzical glance at him, which he doesn't bother returning. 

"Coffee is addictive," he explains, taking a sniff of his own cup of steaming black liquid, "I know from personal experience." 

"Right." she can't decide if she's amused or frustrated; after all these years, he still looks at her like she's his little kid sister, needing his guidance and scoldings to get on the right path. 

"Any updates on the recordings?" 

Nodding, she pulls out the copy of the tape that she had duplicated from Seonghwa's original, placing it on top of the small stack of field notes, and sliding it across the table, into GD's waiting hands. 

"The singer has been traced, his information is all in here. There are some additional things that we've learnt about him that does not fit your description, though—"

"Did you see him?" the man cuts her off abruptly. 

"What?"

"Did you see him? What does he look like?" 

"Uh... Slightly taller than me, but not very tall. Dark eyes, I couldn't tell the specific color from where I was, but his hair was colored bright red. I don't think that's his natural hair. He has a very sharp nose, and his clothes looked... handmade." 

"That's him," the man flips open the book of notes, reading through Lisa and Jisoo's scribbles and Rosé's annotation, before plucking out a note taped to the page, written by Jennie. 

"Recruitment," GD muses, "Background checks to be performed prior to induction, and new members are to fulfill the following criteria."

"It's a new protocol." 

He lifts his cup again, regarding her over the rim. 

"KOI is facing a shortage of manpower?" 

"Sort of. We still have no idea what's going on, but divisions are reporting that hunters have been going AWOL. We're still working on tracking them down, but in the mean time... Yeah. Leader Park put a task force together to recruit more members." 

"And the clause on the bloodline..." she shift in her seat, bristling slightly. 

"I advised him to take it out. It doesn't make sense to keep the old prejudices against Hybrids, considering that there are so many of them. We could easily double our population size if we let them in and induct them as members the Clave. Plus, it's not like we don't have any Hybrids at all — they're really not that much different from us. In fact I would argue that many of them can match the best of our best. Some of them _are_ our best. Kang Yeosang, Lee Taemin sunbaenim, J-Hope sunbaenim—" she is stopped abruptly by GD's hand.

"No need to explain it so thoroughly. I understand. Trust me, I truly do. I never liked that clause, either. It was just one of things that was very... outdated. Much like the Clave themselves."

She watches as his last statement ends in a sneer, and clamps her mouth shut. Right. Sometimes when she gets so riled up about the segregation between pureline and Hybrid hunters, she knows she can get a little carried away. 

"Anyway, thank you for the update. This information has been very helpful." 

"Sunbaenim," she adds hurriedly, as GD starts to stand, "this guy, this Kim Hongjoong... the Outbred are quite an adventurous bunch, but even among them, I would say that he and his group stand out. He really doesn't seem like the type to join organisations like KOI. If the background on him is right, he and his brothers have always operated outside of the Clave, as hunters."

"And your point being...?" G-Dragon was already tucking the sheaf of papers and tape into the inner pocket of his coat.

"He does seem to have a very unique angelic gift, but I don't see why we specifically need him. Especially with how unpredictable he is. He doesn't do things the way we do— he doesn't understand things the way we do..." 

"Little sparrow," his old nickname for her sends a flush to her cheeks, "Let's not jump into conclusions. There may be more than meets the eye, especially when it comes to Outbred such as this group of boys."

"But those who do not learn and understand the Clave law—" 

"Are doomed to abandon it. Corrective Code 207," GD props his hands up on the table as he leans forwards, regarding her with thoughtful eyes, "But isn't this exactly what the almighty Head of KOI, Leader Park Joon and subsequently, you have done? Him by bypassing local counsel and seeking approval from those in Idris, and you, speaking to a deserter of the Clave?" 

Silence falls upon the pair of them. The chatter around them in the cafe suddenly fades into white noise as she registers his statement, a small sliver of ice trickling down her back. GD doesn't wait for her to respond, and instead, continues. 

"There may come a time where everyone may need people as wild and unpredictable as them."

When she finally blinks, she realises that the senior shadowhunter had already swept out of the cafe, leaving nothing but an empty coffee cup and questions in his wake. 

The chattering around her is getting loud again. It makes her skin crawl with mild contempt for these normies. These ignorant, senseless, but yet wholly pitiful beings, tittering around clinking glasses, glancing at her every now and again. 

Her detector buzzes, quite suddenly, in her pocket. She sets down her glass with a sharp snap and stands. 

Time's up. Time to go. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Me: has to write a chapter and is procrastinating here on twitter 2 days late
> 
> Also me: has to write the chapter from Mingi's POV and writing from his pov makes me miss him and makes me sad and makes me not want to write and so is procastinating on twt 2 days late
> 
> Bonus: This chapter: sprouts legs and runs away
> 
> Believe me when I say I paused at least 5 times during writing to type up a mini thesis paper on the bureaucratic hierarchy and sociological structure of the Clave and the communities related to it when I get invested in something I really, really get super obsessed and that is the burden of my human existence.
> 
> *for some fun, if you wish, please submit your guesses for who the following people are:  
> \- Wooyoung's Aunt Yeeun  
> \- Wooyoung's Uncle Heejun  
> (not his actual relatives, he's just immensely lovable)  
> \- Wooyoung's mother  
> \- Seonghwa and Yeosang's father
> 
> Hint: all are first or second gen idols. The last two are tricky because I like to spice things up hell ye


	9. Mercury

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **Some guiding information:**  
>  PARK Seonghwa - Nephilim, Shadowhunter, member of the Clave, junior member of the Council. PARABATAI: Yeosang [Weapon of Choice: knives] 
> 
> KIM Hongjoong - Nephilim (?), Keyboardist, Vocals, Songwriter, Producer, etc, older foster brother to the CHOIs. PARABATAI: San [WoC: music, wires] 
> 
> JEONG Yunho - Werewolf, Vocals, Drummer/Percussionist. [WoC: teeth, claws, and cocktails] 
> 
> KANG Yeosang - Seelie Hybrid, Shadowhunter, member of the Clave. PARABATAI: Seonghwa [WoC: crossbow] 
> 
> CHOI San - Seelie Hybrid, Lead Guitarist, Vocals, Younger foster brother of Hongjoong and older -half-brother of Jongho, will faceplant for love. PARABATAI: Hongjoong [WoC: katana] 
> 
> SONG Mingi - Human, Bassist, Songwriter, Producer, i love u.
> 
> JUNG Wooyoung - Warlock, member of the Clave, Apprentice to Head Warlock of Seoul, has nice hair. 
> 
> CHOI Jongho - Nephilim, Lead vocalist, Rhythm Guitarist, Drummer/Percussionist, Younger foster brother of Hongjoong and younger half-brother of San, preventer of unintended nosedived in front of crushes. [WoC: sais]

Yunho hasn't seen his family so happy in a long, long time.

The thought occurs to him quite suddenly as he leans over the counter of the bar, waiting for drinks for the team. He is waiting but also watching. Watching as Wooyoung and Yeosang fight their way through a crowd, towards the stage. San has already spotted their friends. He looks like he may fall off the stage from how hard he's waving, but Jongho keeps him from smashing headfirst into a speaker by hooking onto a belt loop on San's skinny jeans, as he continues talking to Mingi about the mixing controls for the next set. 

They're missing Hongjoong today, he had a last-minute shift, but it wasn't a situation they were unused to. Hyung's MIDI is set up by his empty keyboard, so they can use the pre-recorded tracks he'd made for their gig. They played at this bar very often — the staff had set up a chair for Hongjoong anyway, even though they knew he wasn't coming. Yunho really likes the people that work here, they are always so nice and professional to them. 

Yunho sees Wooyoung and Yeosang finally reach his family and they embrace the others so violently, Yunho can feel the hug from where he's standing. Seonghwa hyung is noticeably absent... he's probably busy, just like Hongjoong. They've gotten acquainted enough, though, that Yunho can almost see him, looking on in half-exasperation, half-fondness as Yeosang starts chattering excitedly with San and Mingi, and Wooyoung tries to jump on Jongho for a piggyback ride, only to wrestled quickly into a headlock by their maknae. In the days where Hongjoong had lain in bed, sleeping off whatever it was he did with his music and his hand, Seonghwa had assimilated with them rather comfortably and become almost like a second older brother figure to them. He kept them fed and looked after, and also reassured them on Hongjoong's condition whenever they got stressed or worried when he didn't wake up. 

He watches the way Mingi smiles as he throws his arm around Wooyoung's shoulders as a way of a greeting. Jongho and San have coerced Yeosang into trying on San's guitar, and are now taking pictures of him as he bashfully poses with it. They all look so comfortable and happy. 

There's a clink and he glances over his shoulder to see a tray of six drinks set behind him. 

"Oh, I only asked for four—" but the bartenders are all occupied. One of them must have spotted their friends and accounted for them. 

"Thanks!" he calls out to the busy counter. The people that work here are the best. He makes a mental note to ask Hongjoong hyung to send them a thank you message later. 

With the tray, it's far easier get back to the rest without spilling anything. Usually he'd try to grab all four or five drinks using only his hands, but six is really one too many. 

"Wooyoung! Yeosang! I see that you made it."

Wooyoung accepts the drink with a wink, clinking his bright yellow cocktail against Yunho's coral blue one, "Wouldn't have missed it for the world. We were a little late though, so we missed everything so far but the last song." 

"You suck! You said you'd be here on time! " complains San. Yeosang looks apologetic, but Wooyoung just mimics the whining, pushing a cherry into San's mouth to stop his protests. 

"We still made it, didn't we?" 

San's outraged reply is garbled but Yunho knows from experience that he's not actually angry. Out of all of them, Hongjoong and Jongho have the quickest tempers, while San, Yunho, and Mingi are more likely to let the matter 'stew in their gut, until it floods over, like a little forest pond after a torrential rain' as San's Seelie mother, Haruki-san, used to say. He sometimes misses the gentle kitsune — She never understood the human world much, having lived amongst the bamboo forests and quiet Shinto shrines for majority of her existence, but she is always elated to see them, when they did venture out for hikes or visits. She would provide shade and shelter for them, and when convenient, take time off her duties to her mistress, the Seelie Queen, to show them the little sights and sounds of the area they are in. 

"Where's Seonghwa hyung?" 

"Are you kidding? Hyung? He'd rather be dead than caught attending a concert. He's a grandpa stuck in a 22-year-old's body," jokes Wooyoung as Yeosang accepts a drink from Yunho. Jongho quirks up a brow. 

"Strange, wasn't he with you guys at the last gig we played?" Mingi asks, setting his drink down on the vacant barstool behind the keyboard. As the rest continue to chitter, Yunho watches as Yeosang sniffs the drink that he's been given, before a furrow forms between his brows. 

"Sorry, is there one with no alcohol in it? It's... against the rules for a hunter to have alcoholic drinks..." 

Yunho balks at Yeosang's quiet question, and quickly lifts the cocktail out of his hand, apologising. "Crap, sorry! Are you not allowed to drink alcohol? I didn't know, wait, let me get you a glass of water—"

"Here, have mine!" San presses his glass of soda into Yeosang's, "Don't worry there's none in this one, I'm the designated driver tonight, and plus, I don't like doing gigs tipsy, so Yunho always helps me get soda instead."

"Ah, thank you. Won't you be thirsty though, San... San-ah?" 

"Nah, I have my bottle," the guitarist picks up his purple bottle from beside his guitar stand, jiggling it happily, "See? All set. So no worries." 

"Okay, thank you, San, Yunho-sshi."

"Just Yunho is fine, Yeosang-ah," Yunho pats the hunter gently on his shoulder, "We're all friends now."

He sends him a smile, which Yeosang returns after a beat, a small grin spreading across his lips. His eyes are bright and warm.

Jongho claps his hands, disrupting the ongoing conversations, "Next set is starting in about five minutes. We should start getting ready."

"We'll be at the corner!" calls Wooyoung as they start making their way back onto the stage, one by one, "have fun!" 

"We will!" 

As everyone gets into postition on stage, Yunho waves his drumsticks at their friends as their seats in a table, near the back of the bar. Yeosang is already there, and he tugs Wooyoung's sleeve as they both turn and wave at them. The warlock's new ashy blonde hair glitters in the low light as he jumps up and down to get their attention, wolf-whistling when San shrugs on Byeol, which makes them laugh and San blush.

The songs they run through from the next set are clearly crowd favourites. Horizon always gets people's spirits up (literally and figuratively) and they do some song requests that customers of the bar have requested, even as they play through their arranged set. As they near the last stretch, San glances to them, a strange look on his face, before looking back to the front. Without Hongjoong around, they usually relied on Jongho or San to front the set, so they wait for the light-haired guitarist to announce their final piece. 

"For the last song, I want to tone it down a little, because you've been such a great crowd for us tonight, and I think we should have something a little more mellow to send us off. So the last song will be performed by just my brother Jongho and I, with a little percussion help from our wonderful band members, Yunho and Mingi."

Jongho catches San's eye as San passes him Byeol and whispers in his ear. Yunho can feel a small smile spreading across his face, knowing immediately what song San wants to do. He's already pulling out the instruments needed from their performance duffel behind his chair as Jongho nods and clicks the acoustic pedal for San's guitar. 

Mingi takes the shaker from him, and they exchange knowing looks before Yunho goes about settling his drums.

He hopes this works. They'll be lucky if either of their friends catch the hint. He has a pool going with Mingi and Jongho, and he and Jongho are betting on Wooyoung.

As Jongho starts strumming the chord in a carefully laidback rhythm, Yunho watches as San looks straight at Wooyoung and Yeosang, and when he speaks it sounds like he's talking to them, rather than addressing the listening crowd.

"This one's for you."

~

Hongjoong sighs as he turns off the engine and jumps down from the driver seat of the truck. The cracked screen of his phone tells him that it is almost eleven. The boys should be done with the gig now, and driving the instruments back to the studio. He wonders if he should drop them a message and tell them to meet him at Eden's cafe — his mother's best friend had mentioned that Maddox recently ordered some new coffee beans, and wanted to know if they'd be up to try it.

Before he manages to even punch in Yunho's number, however, there's a movement at the edge of his eye, around the corner from the convenience store in their neighbourhood. 

Great. A visitor.

"Seonghwa-sshi." 

The figure shifts into his periphery, dressed in familiar black jacket, black trousers, but a white t-shirt this time. He must be off-duty, Hongjoong finds himself thinking sarcastically. 

"I was hoping you'd spot me." 

"... And hello to you too," he snorts, sliding his phone into his pocket, "Don't people usually start a conversation by saying hi first, before the creepy, stalkerish statements?" 

Seonghwa's lips part, as if he had something to retort with, but nothing comes out. Hongjoong is not a naturally patient person; He doesn't wait for the hunter to find his words and starts walking up the small slope, towards their apartment building. He wants to speed up, leave Seonghwa and his uncomfortable proposals and probing questions far behind, but he reigns in his emotions and takes even, measured steps. _Emotion is dangerous_ , Uncle had said to him, once, a long time ago, _l_ _ike a game of poker, never show your adversary about how you feel about your hand. Or you are doomed to forfeit everything._

They are almost at the entrance of the apartment building when Seonghwa tries again. Hongjoong doesn't look at him.

"Hongjoong-sshi—" 

"I don't have an answer for you yet."

"I'm not here about that."

"Then why are you here?"

"We need to talk."

"Again? I don't have anything to say to you."

The mail room is dusty and dark, but the motion sensor turns on the light as he makes for their mailbox. It's a habit of his to check it, even on days where there isn't supposed to be mail. The letter box is usually the place where the harassment starts, and he couldn't tell for sure how well a hold _INCEPTION_ has over the debt collectors yet. An empty postbox was always a good indicator.

The keys scrape against the metal door as he pushes the flap. It's empty.

Well, for the most part.

Seonghwa is saying something, but he really doesn't have the braincells to deal with all the hocus pocus business tonight. He'd just picked up two shifts back-to-back to make up for his absence, and if he wants to keep his job, he'll have to do two more tomorrow. This means he bailed on his boys, and their first real gig in a while. One that didn't end in demon-cleansing. So yeah, he's tired. And maybe irritable.

He tugs out the letters and paper from the box and shuts it with a cold snap.

Yeah. Definitely irritable. 

"... Just wanted to see how you were doing." 

"It's been slightly more than day since we left," he mutters as he thumbs through the letters, throwing the advertisements away into the nearby bin, "We're not doing any different."

"Right. How's your hand?" 

"It's a hand," Seonghwa makes an exasperated clicking sound with his tongue as Hongjoong waves the appendage at him, showing that he still has it tightly wrapped up. It hurts less today, he doesn't add, so he should regain full use of it, like Wooyoung said. But why would it matter to a Clave servant anyway? It's just a hand, his hand. The hand of a mixed-breed son of a Clave defactor. 

"Did anyone else from the Clave contact you?" 

"I don't know, should there be other people trying to evangelize to me?"

"Hongjoong-sshi." 

"Seonghwa-sshi." 

He rips open the electricity bill that has been forwarded to the apartment, likely delivered on Saturday or Friday, and notes with a small note of dismay that their landlord has not paid the bills for the month. He's going to have to talk to the idiot again. Hopefully he's less drunk this time.

"You—"

"Look," he says sharply, tucking the bill into his pocket and moving on to the next letter, "is there something I can help you with? I've been up since 4am and been at work ever since, and in case you don't understand the nature of my 'work', it usually involves lugging around containers after containers of water tanks and carrying said water tanks up stairs and buildings and all over Seoul, so I'm very tired and in a very bad mood, so if you have a point, please kindly get to it—"

"What's that?" 

Seonghwa's sudden question stops Hongjoong short in the middle of his tirade, and he realises that the man is looking at the letter he has clutched in his hand, at the top of a stack of pamphlets. He doesn't notice anything wrong with it at first, and then he looks closer. It's a clean white envelope, slightly larger than his hand, but it had no postmarks, no stamps, no address on it. All it had was three characters printed in the centre of the rectangular face, the black ink stark against the white background. 

> _Kim Hong Joong_

It looks handwritten, and likely hand-delivered as well, since there were no postal markings on it. He turns it over. No return address. Weird. 

"Who's this from?" he wonders aloud as he tears the seam open. Seonghwa has turned into a statue in front of him, eyes fixed on the item in his hands.

Three photos slide out of the envelope, into his waiting hand. They're all a little blurry, but he immediately recognises the first. And it makes his blood turn cold.

"What the f—" It's him in the industrial yard, striding towards the heap of sleeping bodies, back facing the camera. It's shot from behind him, but he didn't remember anyone else being there that night, apart from him and Seonghwa. The next is from a performance, the set-up and backdrop look foreign, but the little date superimposed on the picture tells him it was taken some time last month. 

The last one is what sends a shiver down his spine. It's a picture of him, feeding the cat that always looks for him on his rounds with a bandaged hand. This one was taken earlier in the morning, _today_. 

"What the _fuck_ this?" he demands, glaring at Seonghwa. The other man looks stricken, clearly shocked by the content of the photos.

"I—"

"What do you want from me?" his voice rises to a shout, and he knows how panicked he sounds. He could accept this man, this Clave person turning up, right at his doorstep, asking things, trying to rope him into some grand scheme of the supernatural world. He could accept any misguided soul who thought that he would leave Mingi and Yunho, two of their dearest, most precious people behind, just to join some sanctimonious religious cult that their parents and him have worked so hard to distance themselves from, but this... this was crossing the line.

"Hongjoong-sshi, I swear, I had nothing to do with this—"

"Then how the fuck do they know who I am? How the fuck do you explain this?" Seonghwa flinches as he snaps the picture of him whistling out from the stack, thrusting it into Seonghwa's face. Rationally, he knows that Seonghwa couldn't have taken it, just from the vantage point alone. But maybe he brought someone along. Maybe he had set up a camera beforehand, and then—

"I... I don't know. I don't even know how to use a camera, and I didn't tell anyone where I was going that night."

"Then who else knows about us? Who else knows about what I... what we can do?" he doesn't care if the neighbours hear him shouting. No one will come running, especially if it sounded like they're fighting. People try their best to stay out of shit like that.

"I promise you, I really don't know." 

His heart is about to beat out of his chest. This was in their letterbox — they know where they live. They know where his family lives. Hongjoong narrows his eyes at the man. 

"You're the only one, the only non-human that knows our address. How can I be sure that it isn't public knowledge amongst you and your people?!" 

"Look," now its Seonghwa's turn to speak, voice raised slightly so he can match Hongjoong's shout, "I don't know where you live." 

The choking snort he makes at blatant lie makes Seonghwa's eyes flash. 

"I am not lying. I don't have your address, I only know the building you live in. I have no information on the apartment you live in, nor where you perform. Look—" Seonghwa rummages through his pocket and produces a crumpled piece of paper. 

"This was the address I got when I tracked this place down, using San's voice on my tape recorder. The locations of the entities we try to locate through warlock-dowsing are not precise, we usually isolate it to an area of two to three blocks."

Hongjoong mutely takes the paper and reads the what's written on it. It only has the name of the street that their apartment building is on, and a range of lot numbers, giving an approximation of the area that the apartment building was in. Faced with his sullen silence, Seonghwa pushes on. 

"Seeing how this area has lots with shophouses and a construction site on the right, me showing up at your door was a lucky guess on my part. If Yunho and Jongho hadn't come out ten minutes earlier to stand outside your building, talking, I would never have gotten that close." he presses the photograph back into Hongjoong's reluctant hands, "No one, and I repeat, no one, not even my father knows about your ability. I didn't tell anyone because I couldn't be sure if _Veritas_ was a one-time thing, and I didn't want the Clave harassing you guys and interfering with my investigations. I'm sure Yeosang or Wooyoung didn't breathe a word to anyone either. They aren't like that, and they're not obliged to give information to the council in KOI. They aren't part of any formal department we have at the Clave. They're just members. Yeosang doesn't attend any meetings, or work on any assignments other than the ones that his team leaders brings him on. Wooyoung is still in training, he doesn't even come to the institute that often, except to look for me and Yeosang for meals."

The lengthy explanation rattles through his head, barely making any sense. Hongjoong feels a war within himself — a part of him still harbours a deep distrust of anyone outside the boys he's grown up with, and that same part is suspicious of anyone who helps him without asking for anything in return. But if Seonghwa truly wants his help, he'd doubt the man would be stupid or that socially inept to send him this and jeopardise the cautiously polite relationship. 

This is enough to scare anyone off. From how it sounds, for Seonghwa, if not the Clave, that is the last thing they'd want to do.

"How do I know I can trust you?" he bites out, trying to keep his voice from cracking. He feels shaky, like he'd suddenly been beset by a bout of shivers from a passing autumn breeze, "how do I know this isn't some... Some elaborate trap to force us into your hand, corner us?" 

"You don't." Seonghwa flatly admits, "you can't be sure, because I have no proper proof. What I have, however, is this." 

Seonghwa reaches for his back pocket and pulls out an almost identical envelope to Hongjoong's. On it, in the same handwriting, is printed:

> _Park Seong Hwa_

"This is what I came to see you about," he says as Hongjoong opens the envelope and tugs out the picture. It's from the same night at the industrial yard, but this time, it's of him and Seonghwa both, taken from some distance and from the side. The Hongjoong in the image was staring intensely... well, he was glaring at Seonghwa, who had his gloved hand to a tight grip, matching his stare with a calm, neutral expression on his face. Seonghwa reaches and takes the picture carefully out of his hands, before flipping it to show him what's written behind.

" _The early bird always catches the worm... but not if the cat catches it first."_ Hongjoong's hand tightens on the photograph, "What does that mean?"

"Assuming that they're talking about the two of us, and they know why I approached you in the first place..." Seonghwa trails off, but he understands what the other man is implying. He passes the photo back, and takes the ones that he's received, flipping them over to see if anything has been written. The photo of the night he ambushed the gangsters and the one of the performance is empty, but the one from this morning has a quick line, scribbled across in neat block letters.

" _Will you be my friend?_ " He reads aloud in accented English, before translating it directly to Korean.

"Do you think these are related?" Seonghwa asks carefully. The handwriting looks the same, but he doesn't want to make assumptions. If they were related... the idea that he's being followed around sends a chill deep into his bones. No, he can't afford to think about that. 

There's a draft coming into the lobby, as stale and cold as the silence that sits between them. Finally, Hongjoong moves, throwing everything but the photographs and their envelopes into the bin. 

"What should we do now?"

"Nothing," he replies Seonghwa, more sharply than he means to. It's been a unsettling end to an already long, tiring day, "If we ignore it, it may stop. I don't want to do anything about it."

"Hongjoong-sshi—"

"I'll give my reply about joining the Clave by this coming Friday," his flat tone cuts off any chance of further conversation, "Is there some way I can contact you? Like an address I could send a letter to?"

"Yes, but..."

He is already rummaging around in his jacket for a pen. He takes the envelope with the electrical bill out of his pocket, and passes both items to Seonghwa, for him to write down his details. As the hunter takes the items hesitantly and starts writing, Hongjoong holds the photos in his hand, stacking them together and turning them over in his hands, as if by doing that, he could suddenly uncover something about their sender.

"Would you mind if I kept both of these letters?"

Seonghwa hands the pen back, shaking his head.

"I don't mind. Go ahead and keep them. If you want to contact me, go to any of the phone booths in this park and dial this number." He points at a four-digit numeral written underneath the name of the park, "Tell the person who answers that you are looking for me. If I am around, I will come out and we can talk, otherwise, you can choose to leave a message."

"Alright." he turns to head for the stairs, his mind a whirlpool of troubles, but he pauses long enough to regard Seonghwa. The man is watching him with hooded eyes, expression carefully blank, but Hongjoong can see that he is troubled too. 

"Thank you for telling me about the letter." he says, "I'm sorry for not being able to help you more, but..."

The facade slips for a split-second. Hongjoong sees a young man under it, someone just as lost as he is, but more hopeful than he could ever afford to be. Hongjoong tries not to show how that makes something in his gut twist. 

"I understand. Good night, Hongjoong-sshi."

He grips the letters tighter in his hands, and he's sure something crumples. 

"Good night."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There are probably grammatical errors and typos EVERYWHERE.
> 
> Comeback season is SQUARELY upon us, and for those who don't know, I'm a GOM (Group Order Manager) for my local ATINY community, as well as actively participating in voting, streaming teams for ATEEZ's comeback. Furthermore, Kingdom is just around the corner, so we've a been pretty up to our necks prepping for that. On top of all this, I'm in-between jobs + holding multiple part-time stints at other places.
> 
> As a result, updates will be sparse, at least from now until whenever Kingdom ends. Do not fear, I have the upcoming chapters sketched out... I just the time and headspace to write it out. Both things I foresee happening in the upcoming months. Henceforth, updates will be infrequent, likely once every few weeks, so this is just me letting readers know, so no one feels like they're left hanging.
> 
> **I'll see you soon! In the meantime, please download Whosfan and make accounts and start collecting votes! Kingdom's first live broadcast is NEXT WEEK 23 Feb, and the voting for performances is GLOBAL. That means ATINYs we need to bring our A-Game. Let's get the wins for our boys.**
> 
> Take care, stay safe!
> 
> [Spotify Playlist](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/7bOEQfB3hSFkHfAhKk8wj2?si=cGNeOjA1RAOcg76lbFZPGA) for chapter titles
> 
> Edit: if you need PCs, albums (I still have 72 fever part 1 albums hidden under my bed) and all that fun ateez merch please hmu on @crayteez on twt i can set you up ok peace


End file.
